­The French telecoms regulator, ARCEP has published preliminary plans to allow the French overseas departments and territories to reuse their GSM radio spectrum for 3G services. The affected countries are Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Reunion.

ARCEP has received seven responses to a public consultation on the proposals which it held last year and have helped to confirm the soundness of the suggested scheme to govern reuse of the 900 MHz band for UMTS.

The Authority has established guidelines that define the framework for processing requests for frequency licences, as well as requests for changes to existing licences coming from mobile operators in the overseas markets.

This framework includes the ability to use the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands for UMTS, along with specific terms applying to their reuse that have been tailored to the particular situation in each department or collectivity.

On the matter of assigning new frequency bands to mobile and ultra high-speed mobile services in the overseas territories, work on the issue could begin in 2012 depending on the requests made by stakeholders. The terms set for allocating the 800 MHz band will take into consideration the state of competition in the overseas departments and territories.