PARIS—The French telecom regulator has confirmed that only Bouygues Telecom applied for one of the two third-generation licenses on offer in France. Therefore, the three current mobile incumbent operators—Orange, SFR and Bouygues—will be the only 3G operators in the country.
France awarded two of its four 3G licenses on offer last year, when only Orange and SFR participated in the award process. The government had expected to award two additional 3G licenses this year after reducing the price tag.
Bouygues said it will invest several billion euros to build its 3G network and plans to launch service around end-2003. In April, Bouygues also announced an agreement with NTT DoCoMo to launch i-mode-like services in France within a year.
