In response to rapidly growing demand for wireless services in the country, France's telecom regulator has collected bids from all of the country's major telecom operators for a second batch of higher-quality fourth-generation mobile licenses. From the last decade, wireless communications can be considered as the fastest growing segment of telecommunications.
According to a press release, the winning bid will be announced in the coming weeks. In a statement, ARCEP has mentioned that France Telecom, SFR, Bouygues and Iliad had offered their bids but did not disclose how much each company had bid.
This second round of auction will fetch at least 1.8 billion euros ($2.33 billion) for the French government and offers "golden frequencies" in the 800 MHz band which means that they allow mobile signals to travel long distances without losing strength.
Earlier, France has already sold off a batch of frequencies in the 2.6 GHz band for 936 million euros.
In the first round of telecom spectrum auction, Iliad was the winner and obtained two larger blocks of spectrum of 20 megahertz whereas SFR and Bouygues got 15 MHz each. However, SFR hands were remained empty in this round. Many telecom analysts predicted that SFR, the country's second-biggest mobile operator, would bid aggressively in the second round since it had not received as much spectrum as it wanted in the first round.
It seems that the result of auction will craft the national, regional, and eventually, global strategies for competitiveness in telecommunications market. Iliad is set to launch its mobile service in the coming days or weeks.
The amount of spectrum won by an operator defines the quality of service it can offer customers surfing the web from smartphones or tablets, a lucrative and fast-growing market. In the forthcoming years, France's telecoms market looks to intensify competition among telecom operators and this competition subsequently reduce the telecom charges.
Similar 4G auctions have been taken place in Spain, Germany, and Italy, while the UK has postponed its auction until next year.
Mandira Srivastava is a MobilityTechzone contributor. She works as a full-time writer, ghostwriter and blogger, and has more than two years of experience in print and Web media. She has also worked on company brochures, website content and product descriptions, as well as proofreading and editing content. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves 
QUICK LINKS 
