The French telecoms regulator, Arcep, said that it is to sell two blocks of additional 3G spectrum to the country’s two largest mobile operators – France Telecom’s Orange and Vivendi’s SFR. The two companies will pay a total of 582.1 million EUR – SFR will acquire an additional 5MHz block for 300 million EUR, whereas Orange will pour out 282.1 million for a 4.8MHz block.
The move comes on the heels of Iliad winning the 3G auction through its mobile arm – Free. The ISP paid 240 million for its license, raging the three incumbent operators which needed to pay much more when the 3G spectrum was initially set for auction.
All carriers need more spectrum as mobile data usage grows. The question is whether Bouygues Telecom and eventually Iliad’s Free will follow the example of Orange and SFR and grab more spectrum, or wait for the LTE auctions to boost their networks capacity…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]