The Ivorian government adopted on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, in Abidjan a decree establishing the financial terms for the release of frequencies between 3,300 and 3,600 MHz, a band intended for the deployment of 5G. The text also determines the value of the bandwidth factor used to calculate the fees for the use and control of these frequencies.
According to the government spokesperson, Amadou Coulibaly, the reorganization concerns portions of the spectrum currently held by operators and service providers. The decree regulates the financial support granted by the State to assignment holders affected by their relocation to other bands.
The 3.5 GHz band forms the core of the Ivorian framework for fifth-generation mobile networks. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority had planned the 3,300 to 3,600 MHz range for this purpose in a decision dated July 5, 2022, before authorizing temporary assignments and then the use of these frequencies.
The new framework comes just over a month after the official authorization to grant 5G frequencies to operators, announced on September 10. The Ivorian Agency for the Management of Radio Frequencies then indicated that the necessary bands had been made available since May 2022.
This decision therefore settles a regulatory and financial preliminary step prior to deployment. It does not mean that 5G is already commercially available throughout the entire territory, and the minutes of the Council of Ministers do not set a public launch date for the offers.
The AIGF is responsible for planning, allocating, and controlling the spectrum on behalf of the State. Between 2022 and 2025, the number of authorized radio stations each year increased from 562 to over 2,000, while the number of sites rose from 321 to nearly 700.
In 2025, the agency inspected more than 1,500 sites, handled 54 cases of jamming, and notified nearly 770 frequency assignments to the International Telecommunication Union.
