Monaco coverage

What the Monaco numbers mean

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The typical speed, 84 Mbps, tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 25 Mbps, is the one that matters. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

If the trip depends on video calls or tethering, plan around the busy figure rather than the typical one.

What happens in Monaco when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over Monaco Telecom. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Mobile operators in Monaco

• Monaco Telecom: Monaco Telecom is the only operator in the Principality and the only one with access to mobile frequencies under the public concession granted by the government, which was renewed on 17 May 2021.
• Monaco Telecom: The concession was extended for twenty years. Monaco Telecom is co-owned by the Monegasque government and NJJ Holding, the company of Xavier Niel, and it wholly owns Epic, a mobile operator in Cyprus and Malta.
• Monaco Telecom: Before March 2024 about three quarters of traffic on the Monegasque network came from Orange customers and foreign roamers. Taking in SFR, Bouygues and Free users was expected to up to double traffic, so new sites were built and spectrum use reorganised.
• Monaco Telecom: Monaco Telecom's own customers use the Orange network when in France, and Orange customers were already switched to Monaco Telecom inside the Principality before the other French operators joined.

Older networks in Monaco

• The renewed concession pairs new technology with retiring the old: Monaco Telecom committed to a plan to stop 2G and to a full switch off of the copper network, alongside voice over Wi-Fi at no extra charge from 2021.

5G in Monaco

• Monaco has been fully covered by 5G since 9 July 2019. The network uses frequencies close to those of 4G and Wi-Fi; the difference is antennas that transmit on demand toward the user instead of broadcasting constantly.
• Under the renewed concession Monaco Telecom must extend 5G coverage inside buildings, tunnels, underground passages and car parks.
• Sovereign Ordinance 3.020 of 26 November 2010 caps the electric field of public mobile networks at 4 V/m across the spectrum, a limit that applies to 5G as it does to 4G.

Network notes for Monaco

• In March 2025 Monaco Telecom was rolling out voice over 4G and 5G with high definition EVS audio, free to all mobile customers. It reports that 99.65 percent of these calls continue without a drop when crossing the border into France.
• From 1 October 2026 every new Monaco Telecom mobile line gets an eight digit +377 number in the format +377 377 xx xxx. Since 1996 its mobile ranges could work under either French +33 or Monegasque +377; existing 06 numbers stay unchanged.
• The government gives stronger protection against number spoofing and phone fraud as a reason for moving new lines to +377, following new protocols agreed with France's regulator Arcep.