During this trip we’ve had wild fluctuations in level of phone signal and data speed, both at home and in Autun. At times 4G and even a little 5G, at times just edge data and even no signal at all. Is this normal in France these days?
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From a fixed location each time?
Speeds can certainly fluctuate depending on the number of users in a cell and - IIRC - cells can tell your phone to move to another cell tower to help distribute load on the system which might cause the indicated signal strength to change.
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You’ve got a signal? And it’s always 4G and above? Here imy roaming phone rotates between 3 or 4 networks whilst just.sitting there. All mostly weak.
Think yourself lucky 
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When I used to go and stay with my dad in Cornwall my phone would pick up one network in the sitting room or kitchen and a different one at the other end of the house.
Show off 
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Taking the ground floor of my house as one location:
That was about 15 min ago, now I have 2 bars. Yesterday I had 4G at breakfast, but by 10.30 it was edge only and it took about 15 minutes to pay on the SANEF site for travel on Saturday. In the afternoon, walking just 30 feet I went from 2 bars of 4G to no signal in a shop where previously Google translate had been my lifeline. There was modest movement at times, but inverse square law was having a holiday. It’s all been very odd.
The present connection is through orange.
It’s absolutely standard where I am at the south of 86 - and it’s been like it for at least the last 10 years.
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Thanks Brian - at least it’s not something weird I’m doing. TBH this is the worst I’ve seen since we had the house.
Same as Brian, I am in 37. Signal hops between 3 masts these days and a couple of years ago only a 2G if the wind was blowing in the right direction.
I use an app. Cell tower locator to check which mast is connecting. Gives position and distance to the mast.
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Indeed. My 4g phone signal can deliver 2Mb download one minute, then 50+Mb the next time I check.
Whatever the system is doing, it’s very sophisticated. It always knows when I need to download a large file or start a zoom call as it unerringly drops to its lowest possible speed as I start! I just shrug and mutter “hein!”. It seems to help 
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Oh, there’s a bunch of clever stuff going on trying to balance available system resources against customer experience.
The most important thing is the received signal strength and quality being reported by your device to the network. The higher these are, the more bandwidth the network is inclined to give you IF it has those resources free.
From a network efficiency point of view, it makes more sense to give more resources to users in better radio conditions as they can make use of them.
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We have the same problem in Nice.
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Right now I’m sat 20 feet from the counter in Norauto where I could get no signal earlier this week. I have 2 bars of 5G.
Nuts.
Last night effectively no signal in the village, but this morning 3 bars of 4G - I think the idea of bandwidth and contention is probably right, and compared to 3 years ago there’s just not enough capacity.
Have you tracked the aerial masts to see where you are connected to? It varies in my village and being in a bit of a land dip I think sometimes on one mast it just jumps over the valley.
Life was far less stressful before mobile phones and a good secretary to tell the caller you were not avialable.
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Back in UK, my phone calls were nearly always to do with emergencies etc… so I couldn’t be totally unavailable…
Sadly (albeit efficiently), there was a tannoy system… and quite often I’d hear my name being bellowed over the airwaves… Telephone Call for Mrs XYZ… and I’d have to go charging along the corridors and back to my office… aaargh.
Here in France, I chucked away the fax machine/ansaphone et al… and for a few wonderful months we were totally “unavailable” to furrin callers … such peace and quiet… marvellous. 
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That’s very much how these 3/4/5G systems work.
Your phone is sitting in idle mode with just enough coverage to stay registered and the system is happy with that as it knows which cell cluster is covering your phone in case it has to page it for an incoming call or deliver an SMS.
When you take/start a call, the system tells your phone to report on all the neighbouring cells linked to the one you’re on (the serving cell). If the phone reports better radio conditions for at least one of these neighbours compared to the current serving cell (there’s several thresholds of “better” it must exceed), the system will hand your call over to this neighbour cell which will become the new serving cell.
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IIRC the system can also tell the phone "this tower is too busy - shift to that one even if the “signal” is not quite as good.
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