Summary

  • Arcep is consulting on a replacement technical annex for France’s short-range-device rules, implementing two EU decisions adopted in 2025. Comments close on 10 November 2026 at 18:00 Paris time.
  • Device categories, power references, transmission time and installation restrictions matter as much as the band itself. The proposal is neither a final French authorization nor evidence that a product conforms.

Two spaces in France’s proposed radio decision are still blank: its number and its adoption date. Much of the rest of the 35-page document is crowded with frequencies, power limits and qualifications. That contrast is worth keeping in mind. The technical detail looks ready to use; the domestic decision is still a proposal.

Arcep’s consultation, opened on 11 September 2026, runs until 18:00 Paris time on 10 November. It would replace the annex to Decision 2014-1263, the French framework that Arcep says was most recently amended in 2023. The purpose is to implement EU decisions 2025/105 and 2025/650, adopted on 22 January and 26 March 2025 respectively. The draft envisages publication in France’s Official Journal after ministerial approval. The consultation deadline is not an effective date.

The equipment covered is less obscure than the paperwork. RFID readers, alarms, data links, medical devices and security scanners all sit within the broad short-range family. But being small and low-powered does not give them a common permission to transmit. In the proposed annex, the frequency is only the first column. The rest determines whether a particular radio belongs in that row at all.

An indoor scanner cannot borrow another row’s conditions

Take security scanners. One entry, at 69.8–79.9 GHz, sets a ceiling of 7 dBm equivalent isotropically radiated power, or EIRP, and confines use to indoor scanners. Another, at 76.5–80.5 GHz, allows 19 dBm peak EIRP but requires out-of-band attenuation of at least 23 dB relative to the permitted maximum peak. It, too, is indoor-only. Overlapping frequency ranges do not let a designer combine the higher power from one row with the conditions of another.

The implant entry makes a different distinction. At 315–600 kHz, the table lists active medical implants, a field-strength limit of −5 dBμA/m at 10 metres and a maximum duty cycle of 10%. The restriction at the far right reserves those conditions for active implantable medical devices for animals. Describing that as a general opening for medical implants would lose the word that limits the permission.

Around 900 MHz, several applications share the same neighbourhood without sharing the same rules. The RFID row covers 916.1–918.9 MHz. Interrogators operating at 4 W effective radiated power, or ERP, are permitted only at three centre frequencies: 916.3, 917.5 and 918.7 MHz. Channelisation is limited to 400 kHz, alongside spectrum-access and interference-mitigation requirements. ERP is the reference printed here, not the EIRP used for the scanners. Keeping “4 W” while changing the reference would misstate the limit.

The French draft labels 916.1–919.4 MHz as radiodetermination. That row specifies 25 mW ERP, channelisation up to 600 kHz and a duty cycle no greater than 1%. It is for devices in data networks, with mobile and nomadic equipment controlled by network access points. The separate wideband-data row at 916.4–919.4 MHz also uses 25 mW ERP, but describes bandwidth between 600 kHz and 1 MHz. Its duty-cycle ceilings distinguish access points, at 10%, from other devices, at 2.8%.

One distinction still needs an explanation

There is a wording difference that a tidy summary should not tidy away. Row 5 of EU Decision 2025/650 calls the 916.1–919.4 MHz category “non-specific short-range devices”; the French proposal calls it radiodetermination. The EU wideband row also states its bandwidth boundary explicitly: greater than 600 kHz and no greater than 1 MHz. The material verified here does not supply an official explanation establishing that the two category labels are equivalent, or that the French wording is simply an error.

That uncertainty is relevant to a manufacturer trying to classify equipment. It is also a concrete question for a consultation that might otherwise be reduced to a headline about extra spectrum. Arcep plans to publish the consultation outcome while excluding protected business information. The proposal itself does not show that respondents have agreed on the wording.

The European aim is coordination. Decision 2025/105 explains how incompatible national conditions can bring interference, restrict cross-border use and raise production costs. Those are reasons for harmonization, not evidence that a particular company has already saved money. Nor does a frequency entry show that a new scanner has been installed or that an implant product has passed its conformity assessment.

For a manufacturer or integrator, the useful exercise is to match an actual radio, antenna and operating mode to the applicable row. The final French text will be the next milestone. Until then, the table offers a detailed view of the proposed boundaries—not a completed product approval hiding in a spectrum announcement.