Frequencies – French Overseas Territories

The passage of cyclone Chido in the archipelago of Mayotte in December 2024 caused massive human and material damage, and fixed and mobile network infrastructures were not spared. With a view to rapidly restoring access to telecommunications and internet services across the territory, Arcep held a public consultation to collect operators’ requests for the “award of temporary frequency licences to restore and strengthen the capacity of public mobile networks in Mayotte”. Today, the Authority is publishing the responses it received, and is awarding temporary licences to use frequencies in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz bands in Mayotte.

Temporary licences to rapidly restore ultrafast internet access

On 6 February 2025, Arcep thus awarded temporary frequency licences in Mayotte to the firms Orange, SRR and Telco OI, in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz bands. These licences are valid until 30 April 2025 for the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands, and until 20 February 2028 for the 2.6 GHz band. As a reminder: frequency assignments in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands provided for by the assignment procedure the Government launched through the Order of 15 July 2024 will come into effect on 1 May 2025.

The arrangements for the licences to use the frequencies can be found in the Annex to this press release.

The purpose of the temporary licences is to offset the risks of overloading mobile networks while work is being done to restore infrastructures, particularly in cases where they would be used to provide fixed access services as a stopgap solution before deploying superfast fixed networks.

Arcep also continues to examine the requirements that stakeholders have expressed in other frequency bands where spectrum resources could be available in Mayotte.