Free’s rivals, Bouygues, Orange and SFR will have to relinquish part of their spectrum in the band so that frequencies can be reassigned. They still have 20 megahertz each, and Free still lags behind with 15 megahertz — but that is still three times what it has at the moment.
The new spectrum allocations will come into effect on May 25 2016, said Arcep.
