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Free (ISP)

Free S.A.S. is a French telecommunications company and subsidiary of Iliad S.A. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications to consumers in France. Its head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris and it is the second-largest ISP in France.

Free provides ISP services in France and in the 30 OECD countries. It was the first company to offer a "triple play" service in France through its self-produced singular Freebox set-top box, claiming to have invented the box marketing concept in France in reference to all the other French ISPs who thereafter released "triple play" modems named to include the anglicism box as a suffix. These boxes provide comprehensive telecommunication services such as high-speed Internet, telephone and digital television packages, leading Free to become the world's number one IPTV provider offering almost systematically IPTV to subscribers and optimizing it to be available on most landlines.

Developing its own 3G and 4G networks, Free Mobile was launched in 2012 and became the fourth mobile network operator in France.

Free was the third ISP in France to offer Internet access without a subscription or a surcharged phone number, on 26 April 1999. Unlike its predecessors in the niche of access without subscription (World Online on 1999-04-01 and Freesurf [fr] on 1999-04-19), Free's offer was not restricted in time or number of subscribers.

In 2002, Free was the first ISP to provide a V.92 connection.

Since September 2002, Free contributed significantly to French ADSL boom. The offer was able to launch as soon as the incumbent was forced to stop abuse of dominant position and to apply fair wholesale prices.

Unbundling, in France, refers to the obligation for the incumbent carrier France Telecom to lease the local loop, because it is a natural monopoly. Although the unbundling process was intended to start by 2000, the actual unbundling process actually started at the end of 2002, after a long conflict between the French regulation authority ARCEP and the non-cooperative incumbent.

Free has to pay a rental fee of €9 per month and per subscriber to the incumbent for the twisted pair of copper between the area central office and the subscriber premises. Although more expensive than the real cost of €7.63, this solution is still far more profitable than the bundled option.

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French telecommunications company
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