ARCEP issues licences to the digital dividend spectrum winners (800 MHz).

Paris, 17 January 2012

Through Decision No. 2011-1510 of 22 December 2011, ARCEP selected the companies Bouygues Telecom, Orange France and SFR as the winning candidates in the spectrum allocation procedure for 800 MHz-band frequencies.

Today ARCEP issued each of these companies a licence to use spectrum in the 800 MHz band to establish and operate a publicly available mobile radio network in Metropolitan France.

The licences concern the frequencies that were obtained during the procedure, which corresponds to a duplex frequency block of 10 MHz for each of the winning candidates. The licences also list the obligations set out in the call for applications, along with the regional development and MVNO hosting commitments made by the three applicants.

The award of these licences marks the completion of the 4G licensing procedures that ARCEP carried out over the course of 2011, first for the 2.6 GHz band and then for the 800 MHz band. These procedures allow the four existing mobile network operators in France - namely Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Orange France and SFR - to acquire spectrum to deploy ultra high-speed mobile networks. It is now up to these operators to begin deploying their new generation networks which, in the coming years, will improve the performance and quality of the mobile services provided to users across France.