Resources

ANFR spectrum monitoring agents deploy in the field from five inter-regional services (Méditerrannée, Atlantique, Est, Sud-Ouest, Paris),), the International Control Centre (CCI) in Rambouillet and four overseas branches (Antilles-Guyane, Réunion - Mayotte, New Caledonia, Polynesia). They are entitled investigation powers to research and  establish infringements of radiocommunications regulations. They deploy extensive equipment (static, transportable and mobile) to measure and locate radio and electromagnetic emissions.

To carry out its spectrum monitoring and enforcement mandate, ANFR uses static, transportable and mobile technical equipment as well as laboratory vehicles :

• ANFR owns various transportable and mobile technical equipment for detection, direction finding, location and analysis of electromagnetic emissions. Thus, it can inspect the use of the radio spectrum, detect unauthorised transmissions and search the sources of interference cases that are reported to it.
• In mainland France, ANFR operates a static network of 25 direction finding stations in the UHF (decimetric waves) and VHF (metric waves) bands, including 4 co-located within its interregional services.
• ANFR can also deploy on site 4 transportable direction finders in the UHF and VHF bands, 8 TDOA (time difference of arrival) hyperbolic radio-location receivers for frequencies up to 8 GHz and 22 transportable measurement stations for other frequency bands.
• To monitor the HF band, ANFR owns at the Rambouillet CCI a wide field of antennas and direction-finding equipment.

Thanks to all these technical resources, ANFR monitors the use of spectrum and processes complaints of interference cases in the frequency bands in which the majority of transmissions occur, in particular those corresponding to security networks (Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of the Armed Forces, Civil Aviation, Weather Services, Ports Administration, GPS, Galileo, GSM-R), broadcasting and mobile phone services.

In order to be able to respond to the increasing number and complexity of threats to the spectrum posed by an increasingly dense radio environment and the growing criticality of spectrum availability for more and more stakeholders and services, ANFR is continually modernising its equipment and methods.

To this end, it relies both on the expertise of its in-house spectrum monitoring engineering laboratory (IDC laboratory) and the experience feedback from its agents working in the field.

Many projects are being carried out: innovating sensors to detect GNSS jammers on board vehicles; equipment and methods for 5G measurement; use of drones for spectrum monitoring; developments in transportable and mobile equipment for spectrum monitoring and searching for sources of interference; preparations for the 2024 Olympics.