The 2026 global 5G ranking published by Opensignal on Tuesday highlights two French mobile operators, Orange and Free, as top performers in specific areas. Orange excels in speed, while Free leads in reliability. SFR and Bouygues Telecom receive no distinctions in this year's awards. The ranking is based on billions of data points collected from smartphones between January 1 and June 29, evaluated across seven criteria. The results were announced on Tuesday, September 29. Despite the strong showing by Orange and Free, France does not win any overall category. However, Orange ranks among the fastest 5G networks globally, and Free ranks among the most reliable in the world. French operators often come close to the top performers, sometimes differing by just a few tenths of a point, making the competition particularly intriguing. In the area of speed, Opensignal divided countries into two groups based on their size, with France competing in the larger group alongside the United States, Brazil, and Germany. Orange achieved a download speed of 280.3 Mbit/s in 5G, ranking 9th and earning the title of "5G Global Leader." The Brazilian operator Vivo leads with a 44 Mbit/s advantage over Orange. Notably, no operator from Germany, Spain, or Italy appears in the top 20. The only other European operator in the top ranks is T-Mobile, which is based in Poland, not Germany. DIGI, a Spanish operator, ranks 12th with a speed of 266.4 Mbit/s. However, no French operator is among the fifteen strongest 5G speed improvements of the year, a category dominated by the Peruvian operator Bitel, which achieved a jump of 226.9 Mbit/s. In the area of reliability, Free stands out. With 970.3 points on a scale from 100 to 1000, Free wins a leadership title, narrowly edging out the Japanese operator NTT Docomo (981.4 points) and SoftBank (980.5 points). Orange ranks 16th with 967.7 points. In 5G video performance, Orange and Bouygues Telecom perform well, while SFR is absent. Opensignal crowned twelve operators in this category, without awarding a top leadership title. The lowest-ranked operator, Telia from Finland, scored 78.3 points out of 100. Orange and Bouygues Telecom scored 78 and 77.9 points, respectively, placing them 17th and 18th. However, Orange Poland scores slightly higher at 78.5 points, earning it a place among the top performers. In other categories, French operators do not reach the top 20 in 5G coverage, with T-Mobile USA leading at 8.4 out of 10. No French operator is among the distinguished performers in mobile gaming or time spent in 5G, a new metric introduced this year. In terms of call quality on apps like WhatsApp, Orange shows one of the strongest annual improvements, gaining 2.7 points and ranking 12th. However, this is not enough to qualify as one of the top five "Rising Stars" in the category. SFR, unlike some foreign operators excluded due to insufficient 5G coverage, was included in Opensignal's analysis but received no distinctions. This indicates the work still needed to improve its performance. Finland wins twelve awards with three operators, and Deutsche Telekom accumulates four, including a victory in mobile gaming. While French 5G holds its position and performs reasonably well, it does not dominate the competition.