Bids reached a total of 2.8 billion EUR
The French auction for the allocation of frequencies in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band ended the 1st of October, reaching a total of 2.8 billion EUR. Each operator had already obtained a 50 MHz block for an amount of 350 million EUR during the first stage. In the second stage of the auction process, there were 11 blocks of 10MHz on offer to bid for.
Orange bid 854 million EUR for a total of 90 MHz; SFR 728 million EUR on 80 MHz, with Bouygues Telecom and Free Mobile (Iliad) each bidding 602 million EUR for 70 MHz.
A “positioning” auction will be organized in October to determine the position of the frequencies of each winner in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band.
Licensees are required to activate 5G service on 3,000 sites by end-2022, 8,000 by end-2024 and 10,500 by end-2025.
The French regulator also announced it is continuing its work to make the environmental issue a new chapter in telecommunications regulation.
