Today, on the occasion of the Salon des Maires et des collectivités locales, TDF is announcing the provision of two relay antennas in Apatou (French Guiana) in the presence of Jean-Luc Inchapsé, deputy mayor of Apatou and Patrick Lecante, mayor of Montsinéry, welcomed by Roland Chedlivili, Co-General Manager of TDF's Towerco BU, on the TDF stand.
These two towers, designed, built and managed by TDF, will enable local residents to benefit from the 4G network of the four cell phone operators.
These new infrastructures are part of the massive action plan that TDF has been implementing in French Guiana for several years, with the aim of developing digital connectivity.
Cell phone coverage: TDF develops the Guyanese territory
Since 2021, TDF has been working on a first tranche of twenty areas lacking mobile coverage, with the aim of covering the populations in these areas. The first six towers built by TDF were erected this year in Montsinery, Sinnamary, two in Macouria and two in Apatou. TDF is currently studying new areas to be covered: three new towers will be built before the end of the year and twelve are planned for 2024.
As an industrial player, TDF works alongside local authorities and mobile operators to deploy new towers and telecoms sites. As a reminder, in 2020, TDF deployed the 4G mobile telephony infrastructure on Route Nationale 1 (RN1), running from Kourou to Sinnamary. This project, inaugurated in February 2020 in the presence of government ministers and local authorities, marked a decisive step in the development of mobile coverage in French Guiana.
An historic presence in French Guiana
As a digital infrastructure operator and audiovisual broadcaster for the whole of France, the TDF group has a long-standing presence in French Guiana, where it operates 38 sites. These infrastructures are used for :
- 4G mobile coverage (63 telecom operator sites on TDF sites) and independent network coverage (28 sites).
- digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting by 19 TDF transmitters, providing coverage for over 96% of the department's population,
- radio broadcasting via 66 FM transmitters.
As part of this dynamic, TDF is continuing to develop its activities in French Guiana and is strengthening its teams. Ten TDF employees, based in Matoury, are working to operate television and radio broadcasting networks, and to build new, high-quality telecoms infrastructures needed by the local population and businesses on a daily basis.
Moïse Edwin, mayor of Apatou, comments: "I'm proud to bring Apatoucians in the northern reaches of our commune the possibility of finally using cell phones with 4G coverage. This has been made possible thanks to our collaboration with TDF, which has installed two towers. Our residents will no longer feel isolated, either from their loved ones, or professionally, or in the event of an emergency."
François Boudé, Overseas Director at TDF, says: "We are proud and honored to enable the population of Apatou and French Guiana to benefit from mobile telephony thanks to our infrastructures. The efforts of our locally-based teams are bearing fruit: for several years, we have been working with local elected officials and operators to build multi-client telecoms towers that make digital accessible to all."