France's Arcep this week revealed that all four of the country's mobile network operators will take part in next month's auction of 700 MHz spectrum.
Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Numericable-SFR and Orange all submitted applications for the contest late last month. The regulator said it would take about a month to evaluate the submissions and make sure the telcos satisfied its eligibility criteria.
"The examination process concluded that the applications from all four candidates were indeed eligible and satisfied the qualification criteria and that, as a result, all four companies are authorised to participate in the 700 MHz band frequency auctions," Arcep said in a statement on Thursday.
The auction will begin on 16 November.
The country will sell off 30 MHz of paired 700 MHz frequencies. It has set a reserve price of €416 million per 2x5 MHz block of 700-MHz spectrum, meaning that if all the frequencies are sold, the government will raise at least €2.5 billion.
The operators will have different limits on the amount of 700 MHz spectrum they will be permitted to bid for, based on the amount of sub-1 GHz spectrum they already own.
No operator may win more than three blocks – or 2x15 MHz – of 700-MHz frequencies, but in addition, Arcep has capped the total amount of spectrum any player can hold across the 700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands at 2x30 MHz.