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 first public consultation[1] from 20 December 2024 to 9 January 2025 to collect operators’ requests for the “award of temporary frequency licences to restore and strengthen the capacity of public mobile networks in Mayotte”.
At the outcome of this consultation, Arcep issued temporary spectrum licences to use frequencies in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz bands[2]. The Authority also launched a second public consultation, which ran from 6 March 2025 to 7 April 2025[3], to query stakeholders a second time on their frequency needs in the 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band, with a view to longer terms assignments of up to 15 years. Today, Arcep is publishing the responses to this second consultation and is issuing licences to use spectrum in the 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band in Mayotte.
Licences to use 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band spectrum in Mayotte
The responses to the aforementioned public consultation that ran from 6 March 2025 to 7 April 2025, along with the requests submitted to the Authority, made it possible to ascertain a lack of incompatibility between requests from operators that expressed a need for 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band spectrum in Mayotte. As a result, Arcep can grant the requests to use frequencies in the band that it received.
On 17 April 2025, Arcep thus issued licences to use frequencies in the 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band in Mayotte to the firms Orange, SRR and Telco OI, for a period of 15 years according to the following arrangement: