The rise of Xavier Niel says a lot about French business

There is a small mistake in the description of the Free subscription : the broadband is 20 Mbits per second, not 2.<p>Personal remark : this guy is freaking awesome, always seeking to disrupt markets to lower prices. The Free triple-play subscription (unlimited broadband, cable TV + free phone calls to most of the world) is so cheap it's a freaking no-brainer. Before, it used to be an exercise in comparison shopping : what operators are available in my area, are they good, what are the prices. Now, you just get Free and stop worrying. They have a bad reputation for customer service, because, just as Google, they like to automate everything (heard that their back-office is huuuuuge).<p>If he could get the license and disrupt the mobile telecom market, that would be great.<p>About the Freebox, the set-top box they provide to subscribers : as if everything they do is not hard enough, they designed custom hardware and software for their combined set-top box/cablemodem. Ok, the UI is not Apple level, but it provides lots of awesome stuff : a TiVo like DVR, video broadcasting, FTP and HTTP servers, a Wifi (802.11-N !) access point, a router and more.

Coincidentally a similar thing is occurring at the moment in Canada.<p><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/the-minnow-in-the-shark-tank/article1293594/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/the-minnow-in-...</a> "Canada's telecom giants are fighting a pitched battle to keep Globalive out of the wireless pool. But CEO Anthony Lacavera and his Egyptian partner are determined to bring competition to the industry. Is this the beginning of the end for the cozy wireless establishment?"<p>Unsurprisingly the three existing companies are trying to lobby the government to keep this new entrant out.

I hope he succeeds because the prices for mobile service is atrocious compared to internet and landlines. I fail to see how the 3 operators are never brought up on charges of market collusion. But Sarkozy is best friends with two (Bouygues/Vivendi) and Orange/FT has it's unbreakable union. I can see why it's happening, but they just busted Apple/Orange exclusive contract, the same courts should be going after the big 3 operators.<p>The freebox is quite nice. I might have gone with them if the customer support wasn't so horrible. A friend dropped them for Wanadoo/Orange because they own the lines and are quicker on the support problems. But they do cost more. I ended up with Neuf, who was bought up by SFR. If they don't get their act together and put fibre in my building I will drop them for free. I just received a letter from free stating that fibre is now available in my neighborhood.<p>If their phones are as flexible as the freebox then this will be very interesting.

For 29,99€ you get:<p>28 mbit/s Free calling to 90 nations HDTV 100 channels and more pay channels Video on demand remote access to the video recorder Access to 3 million wifi spots in the country

Come to Canada, starting in Quebec! It's even worse here.

"If he succeeds in disrupting another business, the establishment may have to acknowledge him."<p>"He forced the incumbent cellular providers to innovate."<p>The article relies too heavily on tropes like these, IMHO.