Second Round of Betting: not Licensed 4G for Free
During a second round of auctions that did not accept the offer of Free (directed by Xavier Niel , which owns as staff Monde ), operators Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom have obtained licenses for frequencies low mobile fourth generation (4G), announced Thursday, December 22, telecom Authority (ARCEP).
These four lots on the 800 megahertz band – also called “frequencies or” because of their rarity – that had been priced at 1.8 billion euros by the State, were finally taken away for the sum total of 2.639 billion euros. So a total of nearly 3.6 billion euros that the state will pocket as the first bidding round in September on the high frequencies of 2.6 GHz band, had already resulted in won 900 million euros.
“Licences will be allocated to Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom” , the latter also getting two of the four lots on the market, but “Free society, admissible and qualified candidate, was not accepted view of the tenders the other candidates ” , said Arcep in a statement.
“We said we would be reasonable, and also indicated that the offer was very unfavorable for a new entrant like us. This is money that has eliminated competition , said Maxime Lombardini, chief executive Iliad Group (owner of Free). We have no regrets. If had thought it was vital for us, we would have been more aggressive, and now we consider that we have everything we be [in terms of frequencies]. ”
Once operational in the country, will 4G speeds for mobile phones up to over 100 megabits per second, and thus almost the same capabilities that have been home since its fixed-line high-speed Internet. Currently, 3G allows you to only a few megabytes on your mobile.
“To continue to have the most comprehensive network, we are investing heavily, as we did yesterday for the 3G and do today for the optical fiber. Similarly, we will be tomorrow on the referents with 4G the lot of ‘frequencies or’ won today , welcomed Frank Esser, CEO of SFR. We invest in the long term and we are proud to build infrastructure that will support high-speed services in the future for more. ”
Orange, the first French operator, for his part, spent 891 million euros: “We are very happy with the result, we obtained the best block at the best price and also the furthest from the spectrum of TNT” and therefore potential interference, said Delphine Ernotte , Executive Director Orange France.
Finally Bouygues Telecom also holds a lot, proposed 683 million euros. “We have a very good financial transaction” and the award of this prize, “an asset in the long term, we will allow for assume the explosion of uses and flows ” , reacted Didier Casas , Secretary General of Bouyges Telecom .
Earlier in the day, Minister of Industry, Eric Besson , had already welcomed the “full success” of the two bids, noting that the state would pocket a billion euros in additional revenue of by operators, which far exceeded the price floor set for the auction.
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