French mobile users will now be connected to Monaco Telecom upon entering the Principality from March 5th in a move designed to improve the quality of the mobile network service in the Principality.
The Prince’s Government announced on Thursday 28th February that all subscribers to French mobile services will be switched to the Monegasque network in the Principality from March 2024.
“Faced with the permanent growth of mobile uses and having to deal with a high population density and limited frequency resources, the Prince’s Government wanted to initiate this transition towards a unified mobile network,” said Christophe Pierre, Director of Platforms and Digital Resources within the Interministerial Delegation in charge of the Digital Transition. “Supported by State Services, it was possible thanks to the cooperation of French operators and our national operator and will ultimately promote quality of service and homogeneous coverage for all subscribers of foreign mobile services.”
Who is affected and how does it work?
Current customers of Orange and Sosh are not affected by the move as they are already automatically connected to Monaco Telecom when present in the Principality.
Customers of French operators Bouygues Telecom, Free and SFR, or their B&You and Red by SFR offers will notice the change, as will customers of all virtual operators on these networks, such as La Poste Mobile, NRJ Mobile, CIC Mobile.
These network subscribers will therefore “roam” when they come to Monaco and will be using the Monaco Telecom mobile network, which they will see listed at the top of their phone screen, instead of the name of their French operator.
“The objective is to allow users, as is the case when they go to one of the countries in the Europe zone, to benefit, for incoming and outgoing calls or for internet connection, from the telephone network of the local operator,” says the government.
How much will it cost?
Each French operator is free to apply its own price rules, however most will include Monaco in the Euro zone, therefore apply no additional cost in most cases.
In order to be able to use the Monaco Telecom network, subscribers to French mobile services must make sure that “data roaming” is on, that the code +33 is dialled for all calls to France from within Monaco, and that the “automatic network selection” mode is on or “Monaco Telecom”is manually selected.
Join the Monaco Life community – sign up for the Monaco Life newsletter, and follow us on Threads, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Tik Tok.
Photo credit: Hassan Ouajbir, Unsplash