Arcep

French operators trigger legal action over fourth 3G licence

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:15:41 -0400

Having complained loudly from the sidelines, Bouygues Telecom has become the first French mobile operator to step forward and issue a legal challenge to how the country's fourth 3G licence is being sold. The company has filed complaints just days before the 29^th October deadline for the filing of licence applications with the national regulator Arcep.

A Bouygues Telecom spokesman stated: "We have filed two complaints to contest the legality of the decree which fixed the price and the decree which launched the tender offer for the licence under the conditions set by Arcep."

Vivendi, the major shareholder in SFR, and France Telecom Orange have both stated their intentions to submit separate complaints to the European Commission about the €240 million price being asked for the 3G mobile licence.

The issue revolves around the current asking price of €240 million against the €619 million that the three 3G operators originally paid for their licences, with the complaint that the French government would effectively be providing state aid to the fourth operator relative to the other three licence holders.

So far, the ISP Iliad is the only confirmed candidate, although other late bids are expected.

For more on this story:
Total Telecom

Share networks, or be forced to, says French telecoms regulator

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:57:49 -0400

French 3G operators have been given an ultimatum by the country's telecoms regulator, Arcep, to reach a network-sharing framework by the end of this year. If no agreement is reached, Arcep says it will impose sharing conditions on the industry.

In addition to having this year-end deadline possibly forced upon them, the operators also have been instructed to produce a plan outlining geographic areas where sharing can occur by 15 June. These areas must include, according to Arcep, those featured in a 2003 national plan to extend GSM coverage, and should consider the possibility of sharing 3G installations in zones where 2G services are not available. Adding a touch of "humour," the regulator also said the framework agreement must anticipate the possible entry of a new 3G network operator on equitable terms.

The operators, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, already are said to be sharing 20 to 40 per cent of their passive installations, such as buildings and masts, but have now to investigate how they will share base stations, either via RAN sharing or 3G roaming.

Separately, Arcep has confirmed France's WiMAX deployments are far behind schedule with--as of the end of December, only 19 per cent of the WiMAX site deployments planned for June 2008 having been completed.

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Telegeography and Telecom Paper

French 3G licences: The never-ending story

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:35:28 -0500

Following the collapse late last year of its efforts to award a fourth 3G licence, the French government has decided on a new approach. Rather than giving out a new full licence, the French have decided to split the spectrum block it intended issuing into three tranches of 15MHz, one of which will be reserved for a new operator. The tender process for the spectrum blocks will take place in February with the actual allocations being made at the end of the year.

The previous 3G licence process failed when French telecom regulator ARCEP rejected the application from the only bidder, Iliad, on the grounds that it had failed to meet the laid-down financial conditions. Iliad said at the time that it was still interested in acquiring a 3G licence and presumably will be considering pitching for the new operator's spectrum allocation. Another possible new entrant is French alternative operator Neuf Cegetel. As there are no limitations on who can bid for the other two blocks, the existing French 3G operators are likely to show interest, which could drive up the bidding. What the spectrum allocations are worth is anyone's guess; the existing operators paid 619 million Euros for their current 3G spectrum.

ARCEP has also announced a public consultation on the application procedures to be followed for the allocation of the 2.6GHz frequency band and for the spectrum released by the digital dividend.

For more on this story:
- go to Cellular News

Related articles:
New French 3G licence designed to trigger competition
Rumour mill: 4th French 3G licence shelved

New French 3G licence designed to trigger competition

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:40:20 -0400

Lack of competition in the French cell phone market has prompted the telecoms regulator ARCEP to recommend that a new 3G licence should be awarded in a public tender. However, ARCEP failed to specify if it would award all the available frequencies to one bidder or divide the available spectrum into several bundles, some of which could then be earmarked for new entrants.

Leaving the door open to further political lobbying, the French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, said she had received the recommendations and would be discussing the issue with other relevant ministers prior to submitting their observations to parliament at some future date.

Following public consultation conducted earlier this year by ARCEP, the idea that the available 3G spectrum could be bundled into packages open to existing operators was rejected unanimously. This essentially leaves the French broadband provider Iliad (which tendered a low offer last year) as the most likely bidder for a 3G licence. In the past ARCEP has rejected Iliad's applications for failing to stand up to financial scrutiny, although with this latest recommendation the regulator has failed to provide any details of the financial criteria required of interested parties.

"We are looking at procedures that give priority to all or part of the frequencies to a newcomer, following similar conditions that governed the previous tenders," said an ARCEP spokesman.

For more on this story:
- go to EasyBourse and ITPro

Related articles:
Rumour mill: 4th French 3G licence shelved. Licence story
French operators play politics to stop 4th UMTS licence. French operator story

French WiMAX deployment in disarray

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:30:24 -0400

Two years after the allocation of the regional WiMAX licences in France, the local telecoms regulator, ARCEP, has found that only three of the 19 licence holders have met their obligations with approximately 15 per cent of the promised sites operational by the end of June 2008.

According to Ovum, Bollore Telecom, the most aggressive bidder for WiMAX spectrum, had only deployed 11 sites by the end of June 2008 instead of the 968 sites it was supposed to have rolled out. However, there are even worse situations, as nine licence holders have done nothing. In total, 3,564 sites were supposed to be operational by the end of June 2008, but only 526 were effectively up and running.

The situation, claims Ovum, has not been helped by the French WiMAX market becoming even more fragmented, with a total of 19 licence holders compared to the original 10. This is mostly due to the fact that the regional public authorities that won spectrum have been distributing their rights at a department level. The lack of WiMAX end user devices has also not helped the overall position.

ARCEP has stated that the supervision of WiMAX rollouts will continue until the next deployment obligation deadline, scheduled for December 2010.

However, WiMAX looks increasingly likely to remain a niche market in developed broadband countries, whereas in Eastern European countries its chances of success are more likely.

For more on this story:
- go to Ovum

Related articles:
Rumour Mill: Will Google finance French WiMAX deployment? Google WiMAX story
France investigates lack of WiMAX deployments. French WiMAX story

Cut your SMS prices--PLEASE, says French government

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:57:53 -0400

The French population is beginning to complain loudly about increasing inflation, claims the French consumer goods minister, who has reacted by asking the country's three main operators--Orange, SFR and Bouygues, to cut SMS prices that have only fallen slightly over the past four years.

The minister, Luc Chatel, has urged the three operators to be aware of the problem faced by French consumers, and has invited them to make an example by cutting the cost of text messages.

The national regulator, Arcep, has provided support to Chatel's call by stating that French consumers on pay-as-you-go phones pay an average cost of €0.12 per text. This price has remained nearly constant since 2004 while the volume of texts has doubled in this period. Of interest are the prices of SMS from France's MVNOs that cost around 25-30 per cent less than from the three main operators. This 'consumer-pleasing' initiative by Chatel comes only days after the EU announced a proposal to slash by roughly two thirds the cost of text messages for people travelling between EU countries.

For more on this story:
- go to MoCo News

Related stories:
EU to impose heavy cuts to SMS roaming charges. EU SMS story
GSMA Responds To EU Proposals To Regulate Roaming Costs For Text Messaging. GSMA story