Like every week, we offer you our column “It happened at Free and in telecoms…” This invites you to immerse yourself in the events which made the news of the current week, but during the years , the decades, even the previous centuries. These events will concern Free of course, but more broadly telecoms and digital technology. Memories, memories…
November 4, 1984: Canal+ was born
The channel was launched on Sunday November 4, 1984 at 8 a.m. for its 186,000 “founding” subscribers. Since that day the channel has grown a lot, but the foundations were already there. The Canal group was already planning to broadcast a wide range of films (avoiding too many rebroadcasts throughout the year), little-watched sports such as hockey or basketball, but also the predominance of football which will contribute to the popularity of the chain.
This now legendary channel is celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Canal spirit is worth celebrating! It has since spawned numerous variations, specializing in one type of content, to offer more and more content to subscribers.
For the more nostalgic or the curious, here are the first minutes of the channel.
November 5, 2015: Free is the first operator to broadcast a channel in 4K
After being the first operator to offer a 4K box with the Mini 4K, Free continued its momentum a few months later by offering the Festival 4K channel on this same box. As of November 5, 2015, this channel appeared on channel 62 for all users of a Mini 4K player. Other 4K channels have since been launched of course, including TF1 4K, but their number remains minimal for the moment. The technology is not yet fully democratized, even if compatible televisions are becoming more affordable and if SVOD services offer it, TV channels are still few in number.
November 5, 2007: And Free created Eva to serve the subscriber
It was around 3 p.m. on this day in 2007 that Free updated its support site with something new: the presence of a virtual assistant named Eva. A 3D modeled character who accompanied users who needed help. It has since completely disappeared from the operator's website.
There's no denying that 3D design in the 2000s was really alive…
November 8, 1999: Bouygues releases the first mobile plan with unlimited weekend calls
To celebrate the transition to the year 2000, Bouygues Telecom is launching a package presenting a more than interesting option for the time: Ultymo Millenium allowed unlimited calls to Bouygues Telecom landlines and mobile numbers. It was an offer limited to the first 200,000 subscribers and until December 31, 1999. For 240 francs, those who were able to take advantage of the package also benefited from 4 hours of communication per month for the first three months then had the choice between several rates for a certain number of call times.
November 8, 2005: Freebox switches to ADSL 2+
A great step forward for Freebox subscribers: on November 8, 2005, eligible Freenauts had the opportunity to upgrade to ADSL 2+, at no additional cost, to benefit from a maximum speed of 24 Mbit/s. The migration was automatic for Free Broadband subscribers with a Freebox V4. Full throttle for Free… for the time of course.
November 8, 2018: Free announces the end of Alice
The end of an adventure that lasted 10 years during the Free era. On November 8, 2018, Xavier Niel's operator announced to all subscribers of the Alice operator that they had to migrate to the Freebox Crystal offer to maintain their connection if they did not wish to switch to another operator. The end of Alice was anticipated, notably with the end of the Alicebox offer in June of the same year.
November 9, 2015: SFR announces launch of its new box, with a bonus VOD service
Zive! This name may not mean anything to you and yet it marked SFR's attempt to make its mark in the VOD market. The operator presented it on November 9, 2015 for release a week later with a new box also called Zive. The service, however, did not make much noise, the fault, among other things, of a rather poor catalog. It will then be renamed SFR Play VOD a little less than a year later.
The SFR Zive Fiber Box was the first box to natively integrate NFC and Bluetooth contactless technologies, it made it possible to connect other devices in the home with a simple contact and simplify their use.
For the record, during the presentation of its new box, SFR explained that at the time of the launch of La Box Fiber by Numéricable, the announcement had been sealed by Free. The reason? A simple coincidence of date: the offer was presented… the same day as Free Mobile! All the tech journalists therefore went to the Free conference, leaving the seats empty during the presentation of the Numéricable box.
November 10, 2017: 4G for the first time everywhere in the metro with Free, Bouygues, Orange and SFR
Metro, work, network! On November 10, 2017, Free, Orange, Bouygues and SFR launched 4G throughout the Toulouse metro. It was thus the first metro to offer full mobile high-speed coverage to its users. All financed by the four operators, supported by the metropolis of Toulouse, for an amount of nearly 10 million euros.
As a reminder, at the time there were only two metro lines in the pink city. In Paris, where the underground network is much more developed, the site took much longer to develop. It is only since June 29, 2020 that all travelers on the RATP network have benefited from full 4G coverage.
This article was reprinted on the Univers FreeBox website
