French regulator Arcep revealed it is mulling a request to extend a roaming deal between Free Mobile and Orange by two years, after the former expressed difficulty in meeting the coverage of its more well-established rivals.

In a statement, Arcep said Free Mobile cited a changing competitive environment for the need to extend the agreement for 2G and 3G network access. The operator noted the market’s standard for network coverage had “increased substantially” after rivals SFR and Bouygues Telecom struck their own network sharing deal, and the regulator introduced new obligations under its New Deal.

The operator requested an extension from 31 December 2020 to the same date in 2022.

If approved, Free Mobile customers would have roaming download speeds capped at 384kp/s, and there would be no change to the interconnection capacity available between “core networks for the flow of total roaming traffic”.

Iliad-owned Free Mobile entered the French market in 2011, signing the roaming deal with Orange to enable it to launch commercial services in 2012 while constructing its own network.