Orange France and Bouygues Telecom are testing fixed wireless 4G for voice and data services in rural areas, Les Echos reports.

Rural homes in France are well covered by DTT, which covers 97 percent of the population, and satellite TV. Orange, which began its experiments a year ago, is testing the technology in the counties of Pyrenees-Orientales, Ardennes and Gers, the last of which is due to be lit by the end of the month.

Bouygues started later, plans to start piloting the technology in five Alpine villages from February. This fixed LTE is part of the patchwork of technologies operators will use to meet the French government\'s aim of offering 30 Mbps to all homes and businesses by 2022. Les Echos asks whether operators will have to adapt their home gateways and whether they will require their future fixed LTE customers to affix new mini-antennas to their windows.