I wrote about the French ISP Free and the Freebox before. I saw that the Wikipedia entry on Freebox was quite complete in French but not in English. So I made a translation that I post here. I also added it to the English Wikipedia.

The Freebox is the box provided by the French ISP Free to its ADSL subscribers.

Its main use is as an ADSL modem, but it also allows Free to propose added services using ADSL as support, like television (via a SCART plug) or telephony (via one or two RJ-11 according to models).

The Freebox is lent to the subscribers, its value being of 400 Euros according to the operator. It is delivered with a remote control and accessories (cables, filters…).

The telephony offer via the Freebox proposes various services of which free calls between Freebox and towards the fixed numbers in Metropolitan France.

The Freebox is not only a simple modem for connecting to the Internet

According to Alexandre Archambault from Free, Freebox is “nothing other that the return to the fundamentals of the DSL”, whose initial objective was “to connect via a single support several types of terminals, therefore several types of services: telephone (telephony), microcomputer (Internet access), television set (television transmission, video on demand, pay per view…), hi-fi system (radios, etc.)”.

Therefore, it is much more than a simple ADSL modem, which can only make the interface between a computer and Internet. Free general conditions describe it as “an electronic instrument being used as interface between the data-processing and or audio-visual equipment of the user and the network of Free Telecom”.

Technical features

The box, designed by Free, uses a 32 bits RC32355 processor and is managed by an operating system using a derivative of the Linux kernel. It has many interfaces:

• An Ethernet port 10/100 Mbit/s full/half duplex;
• A USB port;
• A RJ-11 jack for the ADSL connection;
• A RJ-11 jack for phone equipment (two jacks on versions 1 & 2 but only one active);
• A SCART (Péritel) jack;
• An digital audio output RCA, or optical SPDIF starting from version 3;
• An extension port of the Serial ATA standard on versions 3 and 4 and Parallel ATA standard on versions 1 and 2;
• A host USB port on version 4;
• A PCMCIA port on the versions 3 and 4, which make it possible to add a WiFi card.

Since the version 3, the Freebox can be configured to act as a router. The Freebox version 4 appeared mid-2004 and includes a chipset compatible with the ADSL 2+ norm, as well as a main port USB which will allow, in the long term, the addition of functionalities such as videoconference.

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