Free Mobile wants to be present in the West Indies including in Saint-Martin and invest 100 M€

It was one of the routes opened by the removal of roaming charges between the overseas departments and the mainland: the one taken by mobile phone operators with no local network and which therefore locate to our territories in order to offer packages at very attractive prices.

According to a press release from the Arcep, the telecommunications regulation authority, the operator Free - one of the most competitive in the mainland - has filed a request to obtain a 4G frequency in the Antilles-Guyana area.

On January 29 the Government had launched, at Arcep’s proposal, five calls for applications for the awarding of new 3G and 4G frequencies overseas.

Twenty-five applications were filed, among which there were Dauphin Telecom, Digicel, Orange Caribbean, UTS and Free mobile for Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy.

In its press release, the ARCEP stated that it will consider the applications in order to select the winners of each of the five tendering procedures. As a reminder, the procedure provides for the possibility of selecting up to 4 candidates in each area. Given the number of applications to be examined, the procedure will last for a few months. As originally announced, the awarding of frequencies is expected to be done in the fall of 2016.

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Free Mobile says it wants "to offer simple and innovative packages with attractive prices for the benefit of the consumers on these territories, as it has done with Free Mobile on the mainland and thus generalize the use of mobiles by putting an end to the price discriminations which currently exist in the overseas departments and which nothing justifies. In order to be able to deploy its services on these territories, the Group plans to invest approximately 100 million euros."