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Furor over Fourth French Licence Mounts
(21 Oct 2009, BWCS Staff)French construction to telecoms group Bouygues has, as expected, officially complained about the bidding process for the fourth French 3G licence. According to reports in the national daily newspaper La Tribune, the disgruntled operator has gone straight to the country's highest administrative court, the Council of State.
The company's complaint has been posted just days before the deadline of October 29th that the French telecom regulator ARCEP had set for accepting bids for the controversial fourth licence. So far, the clever money is on French ISP Illiad winning the new franchise, however, Bouygues, angry at what it sees as more lenient terms than it was offered, is doing its best to block the process.
Chiefly Bouygues is contesting the price for the licence, fixed by ARCEP at euros 240 million (US$359.4 million), on the grounds that it paid euros 619 million for its licence in 2002, the newspaper reports. Fellow French mobile operators Orange and Vivendi's SFR, have also complained long and hard that the price set for the new licence is too low.
The matter has been given further colour by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who, in a recent private meeting with deputies, raised questions about the need for a fourth operator at all and the impact it would have on the telecom market.
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