Free Mobile said to be signing up 100,000+ new users per day

The French daily Les Echos reports that the number of people clamouring to sign up to the country’s latest market entrant, fourth mobile operator Free Mobile, currently exceeds 100,000 per day and threatens to swamp France’s mobile number portability (MNP) system. The paper quotes traffic management data collated by Orange France (Free Mobile’s partner operator – which is providing roaming cover to support its network launch) suggesting that the newcomer could have more than one million subscribers by the end of this month. It is understood that Free Mobile has agreed to limit the number of MNP requests it is receiving to between 35,000 and 40,000, given the potential overload on the systems that are in place.