French WiMAX licensee looks to offer backhaul to cellular incumbents

A French WiMAX licensee is looking for a partnership deal with incumbent mobile operators Orange and SFR that would see the WiMAX company provide data backhaul to the two operators.

Bolloré Telecom, which paid nearly $140 million for its 20 regional WiMAX licenses in France, is significantly behind schedule with its commercial deployments and desperately needs to boost its income. A partnership with the incumbents could see either operator having access to Bolloré Telecom's WiMAX licenses in return for access to the operator's customer base. Another alternative would be for Bolloré Telecom to simply hand over its frequencies to either operator. How the French telecoms regulator might view such a transaction is not clear.

For more:
- see Total Telecom

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