At a glance
- Provider
- Free (Iliad)
- Category
- Europe Telecom
- Country/Region
- France
- Known ASNs
- AS12322
Free (Iliad) network profile
Europe Telecom provider in France. French ISP with significant residential fiber and mobile base.Free (Iliad) is one of the major Europe Telecom providers tracked in this directory, with operations in France. This profile page covers Free (Iliad)'s primary ASN references (AS12322), common coverage locations, and the diagnostic context most useful when an IP lookup, ASN result, or traceroute attributes a public address to Free (Iliad). Use it as a starting point for ASN, WHOIS, and reverse DNS validation rather than as a standalone proof of identity or location.
How to use this page
Use this profile when an IP lookup shows Free (Iliad) or a related ASN. It gives quick context before deeper routing and ownership checks.
- Map the IP to ASN in the ASN lookup tool.
- Validate reverse DNS and WHOIS ownership details.
- Compare with blacklist status for reputation checks.
Common coverage locations
Free (Iliad) ASN references
Free (Iliad) investigation notes
Large European telecom groups often combine fixed, mobile, enterprise, and wholesale segments, so the brand name should be validated against the ASN before drawing stronger conclusions.
Free (Iliad) usually works well as a French consumer-network signal, with ASN confirmation doing more work than hostname wording when you need stronger attribution.
- Cross-check country, ASN, and PTR data together because one telecom brand can span several network families.
- Start with AS12322 as the expected ASN family before assuming the provider result is final.
- When the decision is important, combine Free (Iliad) with reverse DNS, WHOIS / RDAP, and blacklist context instead of relying on one data source.
Best follow-up checks
Free (Iliad) troubleshooting workflow
Start with IP to ASN mapping, then verify reverse DNS and WHOIS ownership. For email and abuse workflows, add blacklist checks to assess IP reputation signals around Free (Iliad) traffic.
Related tools
Free and the Iliad disruption story
Free is the consumer-broadband and mobile retail brand of Iliad SA, the French telecom group built by entrepreneur Xavier Niel from a 1990s Minitel-services business into one of France's four mobile operators and one of its largest residential broadband operators. Iliad has consistently positioned itself as a price disruptor against the historic France Telecom (now Orange), SFR, and Bouygues Telecom incumbents. The company's fixed-line broadband brand launched in 2002 with one of the first triple-play (internet, TV, phone) bundles in Europe, and the mobile brand launched in 2012 with a famously low-priced unlimited tariff that forced material price cuts across the entire French mobile market.
Iliad's strategy has been built around vertical integration: building its own access network where commercially feasible rather than renting wholesale from the incumbent, designing and manufacturing its own customer-premises equipment (the Freebox line of routers), and minimizing dependence on external suppliers for IT and network functions. The result is one of the most distinctive ISP operating models in Europe, and the technical attribution signature of a Free line reflects that vertical-integration choice in ways most other European retail ISPs do not match.
AS12322 and independence from incumbent wholesale
Free's primary autonomous system is AS12322, registered to Free SAS in the RIPE database. AS12322 is the dominant ASN for French Free retail broadband and is one of the larger French eyeball networks by subscriber count. Where most European retail ISPs ride wholesale access from the national incumbent (Sky UK rides Openreach, alt-net Germans ride Telekom bitstream), Free has invested heavily in building its own DSL unbundling footprint and increasingly its own FTTH passive-fiber infrastructure across France.
The implication for IP attribution is unusual. When a French residential IP belongs to AS12322, that IP is much more likely to be running over Free-owned physical infrastructure than a Sky or TalkTalk UK IP is to be running over the retail ISP's own physical plant. The wholesale-versus- retail attribution gap that complicates Orange France and most other European operators is narrower for Free, particularly on FTTH lines in dense urban areas where Free has built its own passive infrastructure rather than rented from Orange or Covage.
Freebox CPE and the vertical-integration model
The Freebox is Free's customer-premises equipment brand and one of the most distinctive consumer routers in any European market. Successive generations include the original Freebox, the Freebox Revolution (designed in collaboration with Philippe Starck and notable for its industrial design), the Freebox Delta, the Freebox Pop, and the Freebox Ultra. Each generation has progressively expanded built-in functionality beyond basic routing: integrated home-NAS storage, set-top-box functions, IP telephony, Wi-Fi mesh, and home- automation hubs are bundled into a single Iliad- designed product across the Freebox lineup.
The vertical integration of CPE design and manufacturing produces a recognizable operational fingerprint. Freebox CPEs run an Iliad-controlled firmware platform with its own configuration model and its own update cadence, which differs materially from the white-label CPE platforms used by most European retail ISPs. Subscriber control over advanced router settings is more open than Orange's Livebox or BT's Smart Hub managed models, and the Freebox lineage is a recurring feature of French residential network analysis.
The 2012 Free Mobile launch and the French price reset
Iliad launched Free Mobile in January 2012 with a pair of tariffs that fundamentally reset expectations in French mobile pricing: a low-cost voice-only plan and a then-extraordinary 20-euro unlimited voice, text, and data plan with significant included roaming. Subscriber uptake was rapid (millions of subscribers within months) and forced material price cuts and tariff restructuring across Orange, SFR, and Bouygues Telecom that materially compressed industry revenues for several years.
At launch Free Mobile used a network-sharing arrangement with Orange for areas its own radio network did not yet cover, gradually transitioning to its own infrastructure on a defined regulatory schedule. Today Free Mobile runs a national mobile network across 4G LTE and 5G NR on its own spectrum and equipment, with continued partial-sharing in selected rural areas. Free Mobile attribution at the IP layer typically uses AS12322 for mobile data sessions, alongside packet-gateway concentration that produces the standard CGNAT-style sharing of public IPv4 addresses across many subscribers.
FTTH leadership and the proxad.net PTR signature
Free has been one of the most aggressive European deployers of FTTH to consumers, leveraging the regulated French FTTH wholesale framework to expand rapidly in zones where it does not build its own physical plant while owning the infrastructure where commercially attractive. The Free FTTH product extends to multi-gigabit symmetric service on higher-tier subscriptions, and Free was among the first European operators to ship 10 Gbps consumer fiber-tier products in limited markets.
PTR conventions on Free retail lines are distinctive and immediately recognizable. Dynamic consumer assignments commonly carry hostnames under proxad.net in the form XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX.subs.proxad.net or XXX.fbx.proxad.net for Freebox- connected lines, where fbx stands for Freebox. Theproxad.net domain is the Proxad legacy domain (Proxad was Iliad's early ISP brand before the Free rebrand) and its presence in a French PTR reliably identifies Free retail. It is one of the cleanest residential PTR signatures in Europe, with no meaningful confusion against Orange's wanadoo.fr heritage, SFR brands, or Bouygues.
Native IPv6 deployment and dual-stack maturity
Free was one of the earliest European retail ISPs to deploy native IPv6 to consumer customers, with IPv6 production rollout starting in 2007 — years ahead of most peers. The Freebox platform has shipped with native IPv6 support across modern generations, and most Free residential lines today deliver a dual-stack assignment with both a dynamic IPv4 from AS12322 pools and an IPv6 prefix delegated to the Freebox. The mature IPv6 baseline is one of Free's longest-running technical differentiators.
The practical implication for VPN testing is the standard residential leak surface, but with the caveat that IPv6 has been deployed on Free for so long that even technically inexperienced users may have functional IPv6 connectivity without realizing it. A VPN client tunneling only IPv4 will leave IPv6 unguarded, and the customer prefix from AS12322 will identify Free as the access network even when IPv4 is tunneled. Run an IPv6 leak test against a Free connection — it is one of the French lines most likely to surface real-world IPv6 leak conditions in any VPN coverage check.
Iliad Italia and Iliad Polska: international expansion
Iliad's international expansion has followed the same disruptor playbook as the French home market. Iliad Italia launched mobile service in 2018 with aggressive pricing that materially compressed Italian mobile market revenues, growing into a meaningful fourth Italian mobile operator within a few years. Iliad Italia operates under separate Italian ASN identities and is regulated by AGCOM rather than ARCEP. Iliad Polska was created through the 2020 acquisition of Polish operator Play (formerly P4 Sp. z o.o.) and runs Polish mobile under its own Polish ASN portfolio.
The attribution implication is that an Iliad-tagged IP outside France should not be assumed to be Free. Iliad Italia and Iliad Polska run separate national networks under separate national regulators with different ASN registrations. The AS12322 attribution is specifically French Free retail; international Iliad opcos use distinct ASN identifiers that map to country-specific business units rather than to the Free brand.
Consumer mail, free.fr, and outbound reputation
free.fr is Free's consumer email domain and remains in active use among French subscribers despite the long-term migration of consumer email toward Gmail and Outlook.com. Free operates inbound and outbound mail infrastructure for free.fr addresses, and inbound mail filters are applied at the Free MX layer for subscriber-facing spam and malware screening. Outbound mail from Free retail residential lines is subject to port-25 restrictions consistent with most modern European consumer ISPs to suppress residential-line spam.
For mail-reputation triage the implication mirrors other European incumbents. Mail claiming to originate directly from a Free retail IP without going through Free's submission infrastructure is almost certainly spoofed or policy-violating, and public-blocklist providers such as Spamhaus PBL cover Free residential ranges by default. Business and dedicated-IP customers have separate ranges and separate reputation considerations that fall outside the residential consumer context.
ARCEP regulation and the French wholesale framework
Free operates within the same ARCEP regulatory framework that shapes Orange and other French retail ISPs, but its position within that framework is unusual. Where most competitors rely heavily on regulated wholesale access from the incumbent, Free has invested in its own physical infrastructure and in the regulated FTTH passive- access model that lets multiple retail ISPs use a single physical fiber strand. The French FTTH wholesale model in dense urban areas allows Free to use its own fiber where it has built, or to rent passive-access from Orange or alt-fiber builders in zones where Free has not.
The structural implication is that an AS12322 IP may be running over Free-owned physical infrastructure in some zones and over rented passive-access fiber in others, but in both cases the retail subscriber relationship and the IP attribution remain with Free. The physical-versus- retail distinction that complicates Orange and Sky attribution is less material for Free because Free tends to own significantly more of its access footprint outright than the typical European retail ISP. The wholesale framework also enables Free's international expansion into Italian and Polish markets where similar regulated wholesale models exist, though under different national regulators.
Mobile network ownership and the Free Mobile coverage map
Free Mobile started in 2012 with a hybrid model: its own radio infrastructure in dense urban areas, supplemented by a regulated roaming agreement with Orange for areas Free had not yet built. The agreement was structured as a multi- year transitional arrangement, and the underlying expectation was that Free would build out its own radio network nationwide while progressively reducing dependence on Orange roaming. The transition has progressed substantially over the years since, with Free Mobile coverage now dominated by its own infrastructure across most of the French population.
Free Mobile 5G deployment uses primarily 3.5 GHz mid-band spectrum with selective millimeter-wave deployments in dense urban areas and 700 MHz low- band for coverage. Free Mobile's 5G market share has grown materially, and the operator has been one of the more aggressive 5G NR Standalone deployers among French operators. Mobile-data IP attribution on AS12322 reflects the standard CGNAT pattern with packet-gateway concentration and minimal PTRs, with native IPv6 available on data sessions consistent with Free's longstanding IPv6 deployment philosophy.
Investigation pitfalls specific to Free IPs
Several attribution traps recur with Free IPs. First, the proxad.net PTR domain is the Proxad legacy from before the Free rebrand and should not be mistaken for a non-Free operator — proxad.net in a French residential PTR is Free. Second, AS12322 covers both Free fixed broadband and Free Mobile, and distinguishing the two on the IP alone is difficult without inspecting the specific subnet and prefix allocation patterns; the access type affects expected user behavior considerably.
Third, Iliad Italia and Iliad Polska share the parent company but not the network or ASN attribution — Iliad-branded IPs outside France are not Free. Fourth, Free's mature IPv6 means residential IPv6 leak conditions are more commonly seen on Free lines than on later-IPv6 French operators, which can be a misleading signal if interpreted as a privacy-tool fingerprint rather than as Free's default infrastructure behavior. Fifth, the Freebox CPE platform exposes more advanced subscriber configuration than most managed-router models, so unusual home-network configuration on a Free line is not by itself a signal of expert privacy tooling.
Quick reference summary
Free is the French consumer brand of Iliad SA, a vertically integrated telecom group built by Xavier Niel to disrupt the historic French incumbents. AS12322 is the primary Free ASN covering both retail broadband and Free Mobile. The proxad.net PTR domain is the cleanest French retail attribution signature available. FTTH coverage is broad and extends to multi-gigabit symmetric tiers, and the Freebox CPE lineup is one of the most recognizable consumer-router platforms in European telecoms.
Native IPv6 has been live on Free since 2007, producing the standard residential leak surface for VPN testing in a more mature form than on French competitors. The 2012 Free Mobile launch fundamentally reset French mobile pricing. Iliad's international footprint includes Iliad Italia and Iliad Polska, but the Free brand is specifically French. For per-IP attribution, pair an ASN lookup with a WHOIS lookup to confirm whether an Iliad-group IP belongs to French Free retail, Iliad Italia, or Iliad Polska before assuming the consumer attribution from the brand label alone.
Free (Iliad) FAQ
What ASN does Free (Iliad) use?
Free (Iliad) may use one or multiple ASNs depending on region and service type. This page lists common references for quick investigation.
Can Free (Iliad) IP addresses change location results?
Yes. Geolocation can vary by database and routing design, especially on mobile or CGNAT-heavy networks.
How should I verify ISP ownership?
Cross-check ASN mapping with WHOIS/RDAP and reverse DNS to reduce false assumptions from one data source.
Is Free (Iliad) enough to identify an exact user location?
No. The ISP name is provider context. Exact location and subscriber-level identity require stronger evidence than public lookup data can provide.
Why do Free (Iliad) lookup results sometimes show nearby cities?
Provider aggregation, dynamic address pools, mobile gateways, and stale geolocation records can all make a correct ISP match appear under a nearby city.