The data published by the National Frequency Agency for the month of March shows that the health crisis has not really had a visible impact in figures on the deployment of 4G.

In fact, as of April 1st, ANFR recorded a 1% increase in requests for authorizations and activation of 4G sites from one month to the next. This is the usual rate, but the restrictions were not put in place until mid-March and there may be a delay between the installation of an antenna and its activation.

The impact is likely to be observable in the data for the coming months as operators are now giving priority to the maintenance and resizing of their networks. The objective is to cope with the high demand on the networks - voice and data - and the new geographical situation brought about by confinement.

The emergency law voted to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus epidemic includes a digital infrastructure component for mobile operators. They will be able to use a "simplified procedure for sites that will ensure continuity of service". However, this initiative is too recent to be included in the March report, as "the request for authorisation of sites authorised on 1 April was received before this system was applicable", explains the ANFR.

Orange was the most dynamic in March, with 350 new sites, followed by SFR (276), Free (251) and Bouygues Telecom (83). The incumbent operator maintained its leadership in terms of the number of 4G sites operated (21,830), ahead of SFR (19,000), Bouygues Telecom (18,188) and Free (15,586).

The situation is slightly different in terms of the number of activated antennas. Orange is also the leader here with 1,481 new activations. But it is Free that we find behind with 1,016 activated antennas. Activity was significantly less intense in March at SFR (553) and Bouygues Telecom (352).

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Source : DegroupNews

The names of the operators who will participate in the allocation of the first frequencies dedicated to 5G were unveiled by Arcep on 26 February. Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free have therefore applied. The four major national operators will compete in an auction, scheduled to start in mid-April, to win back as many frequencies as possible. And the stakes are high: those who win the most spectrum will be able to offer a better service than the others.

For the Arcep, the fact that the four major operators have responded is a source of satisfaction. For the president of the institution, Sébastien Soriano, it proves that the conditions of this sale "are reasonable". Even if some operators have shouted the opposite in recent months, believing that the government was financially too greedy. They also felt that the spectrum came with obligations to cover the territory - especially rural areas, which are much less profitable than cities - too large and costly.

No other telecom players applied for 5G, including the large MVNOs. The same is true for industrialists in different sectors. It must be said that the allocation requires the purchase of a minimum of 40 MHz of frequencies. This measure, which aims "to avoid the fragmentation of the spectrum" explains Sébastien Soriano, has de facto "set the bar a little high" for industrialists.

Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free, provided they comply with the required commitments, should each recover a block of 50 MHz at a fixed price of 350 million euros. 350 million. A battle will follow for the remaining 110 MHz, which will be auctioned in blocks of 10 MHz, but no operator will be able to win more than 100 MHz of spectrum in total.

The Arcep is due to determine in the coming weeks how the auctions will be conducted. Several modalities are still to be worked out.

It should be noted that during the auctions, operators will not be allowed to discuss and agree on certain common strategies among themselves, which would distort competition. If there is no change in the agenda, the regulator expects the frequencies to be allocated in June. Operators will then be able to start rolling out 5G in early summer, in July.

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Source : La Tribune

A little over a year ago, Axione and the Mirova Fund created CityFast. The company had bought the 140,000 fibre optic lines deployed by Bouygues Telecom in major cities. CityFast then made a commitment to connect 3.4 million urban households by the end of 2021 and to lease this infrastructure to Martin Bouygues' operator and others.

One year later, CityFast assures to have crossed the 800,000 fiber optic lines deployed. The wholesaler will therefore move on to the next phase: the marketing of these pipes to interested operators. The multitude of regional or specialized operators supplying VSE-SMEs will then be able to offer fibre optic subscriptions in city centres at very competitive rates.

The president of CityFast, Eric Jammaron, explains "Today, it is a very closed market. A downtown law firm, for example, has a very limited choice. Either it takes an FTTH subscription from one of the major operators present in the building, without guarantees, or it goes through a corporate operator to have a dedicated fibre with a very superior quality of service, but a very expensive subscription".

The wholesaler is convinced that small and medium operators will be in a hurry to offer fibre, with or without a guaranteed recovery time, to VSE-SMEs.

"We are betting on the mass, with extremely aggressive prices," says Eric Jammaron. Today, an ADSL pro offer, with much lower speeds, sells for 60 to 80 euros. Pro fibre doesn't go below 300 euros. "CityFast will sell its FTTH lines with service guarantees three times cheaper to operators.

An argument that is not entirely convincing. Nicolas Aubé, head of Celeste, is convinced that companies will remain fond of lines just for themselves.

CityFast will quickly know what to expect. As of this week, it opens to rent its fiber lines in the 7th district of Paris, then in the other districts of the capital, as well as in Lyon and Marseille.

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Source : Les Echos

According to several telecom specialists, operators' uncertainty about whether or not to use Huawei's 5G antennas for their new mobile networks is growing.

Yet the law on securing mobile networks (nicknamed "anti-Huawei") has made things clearer. Indeed, operators must get the green light from Anssi - the National Agency for Information Systems Security - before using 5G equipment. The Agency then has two months to study their files.

At the end of December, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom all submitted authorization applications for the deployment of Chinese 5G antennas in France.

However, according to several sources, cyber-experts in the French-speaking part of the country are making more and more requests for further information. It's not serious, "says a concerned operator. If they're trying to save time this way, it's a mistake. A court would never agree with them, the case law is very clear".

What operators are actually afraid of is that the Anssi is deliberately dragging its feet to avoid having to post a denial of clearance ahead of the 5G frequency allocations, scheduled for April. If equipment manufacturers were to be denied to operators before that date, the latter would then be weakened and could therefore lower their bids for the 5G auctions .

According to the new legal framework, the absence of a positive response from the Anssi within two months is tantamount to a refusal. But this time limit runs from receipt of a complete file... a complete file. Hence the irritation of the operators in front of what one actor describes as "delaying tactics" to postpone the deadline.

A specialist in the sector even indicates that "Some operators are impatiently waiting for an implicit refusal to be able to take legal action".

But the strategic interest of the four players differs. Indeed, Free, using only antennae of the Finnish Nokia, is not concerned.

Orange does not use Huawei antennas in France to date. However, it wants to have the possibility to solicit the Chinese supplier for its future 5G network.

As for SFR and Bouygues Telecom, which use Huawei on half of their respective networks, they are keen to be able to continue doing business with the Shenzhen giant. Doing without its 5G antennas would indeed require dismantling the 3G and 4G antennas for compatibility reasons. The cost would be enormous. You would have to buy and install this equipment. Above all, a large part of the network would be disrupted for many months, pushing customers into the arms of the competition. "Free would become, without doing anything, the second best network in the country... while it remains far behind" as a telecom specialist analyses.

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Source : Les Echos

From the second half of the year, the railway group will sell fibre to regional telecom operators for business customers.

On this market dominated by Orange and SFR, the arrival of SNCF should therefore make waves. The company has historically had a 20,000-kilometre fibre network that connects its 3,000 stations in particular. For years, SNCF has already been leasing access to its network to regional telecom operators too modest to build such infrastructures themselves. However, this is very long-distance "dark" fibre. The operators have to install their own equipment to bring it into service. This time, SNCF's ambition is to sell "activated" fibre, i.e. ready to use.

The group assures that it does not want to "disrupt" the market, but simply to contribute to the digital development of the region. The Very High Speed Broadband plan should generalise fibre throughout France by 2022, but today only 23% of VSE-SMEs are connected to it, according to a Covage study.

The SNCF wants to propose a premium offer with the aim of achieving profitability. "The SNCF is going to enter this market with State aid. So this project is not going to be very well received by the major operators. It's a very political issue," says one observer.

There is nothing trivial about the timing of this project. Kosc, a wholesale operator created in 2016 to shake up the Orange-SFR duopoly in corporate telecoms and which leased its fibre network to 65,000 customers, has only six months to find a buyer. In this context, small operators worried about being cut off from the Kosc network could turn... to the SNCF.

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Source : Les Echos

This time, let's do it! Operators who wish to launch into 5G can now apply to the Arcep for frequencies in the 3.4 - 3.8 GHz band. Operators must apply before 12 noon on February 25th 2020.

The regulatory authority will examine the applications and issue authorisations during the first half of 2020. It is expected that the four operators - Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free Mobile - will be successful at the end of the award procedure.

As resources are limited, the real question is how many frequencies each applicant will have.

A mixed allocation system has been planned: the frequencies are divided into fixed-price lots and variable-price lots, which will be determined by auction. The fixed-price lots each contain a 50 MHz block, while the variable-price lots consist of a 10 MHz block. An operator must apply for at least 40 MHz and is not allowed to have more than 100 MHz.

Fixed price blocks are sold for EUR 350 million each. The others start at EUR 70 million.

However, the government does not intend to squeeze the candidates and a certain flexibility in the purchase of frequencies is thus provided for: the 10 MHz blocks can be paid for over 4 years and the 50 MHz blocks over 15 years - this is the duration of the allocation of frequencies. This is the duration of the frequency allocation, which may be extended if necessary.

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Source : Numerama

On 22th November last, the Arcep adopted the procedures for allocating frequencies in the 3.5 Ghz band. Two days later, the government announced the reserve price below which it did not intend to transfer the first portion of spectrum dedicated to the 5G mobile network. And the operators make a face: the floor price seems far too high to them.

4 sets of 50 MHz allocated to each of the four operators at a fixed price of 350 million euros. Then 11 blocks of 10 Mhz that they will then compete at auction, bidding 70 million euros. 2.17 billion, while Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free did not expect this reserve price to exceed The Arcep even campaigned for a prize of 1.5 billion "grand maximum".

In an interview at Les Echos, however, Agnès Pannier-Runacher presents this amount as "reasonable". In particular with regard to the sums paid by German or Italian operators. The representative of Bercy also argued that this figure corresponds to that determined by the Commission des Participations et Transferts, which "analyses the price below which the French people's assets do not seem to him to have to be sold".

A discourse that clashed with the operational and financial reality of 5G, reacted the operators. "This decision is not consistent with what has been put forward by the government in recent months," said Arthur Dreyfuss, President of the TFF. It constantly warns the State against a price boom that would deprive operators of the means to invest in deployment afterwards. Especially since the obligations assigned to them in return for the allocation of frequencies seem too ambitious.

5G frequencies too expensive: another dispute on the road to the future mobile network. Their disagreements relate not only to the reserve price, but also to the size of fixed-price blocks, the pace of deployment, 5G hedging obligations and the duration of licences. A non-exhaustive list of demands on which the regulator is far from having satisfied the Telecom Quartet.

Against the advice of Arcep, which favoured 60 MHz blocks, the state finally opted for 50 MHz. "With 50 MHz blocks, for a total of 310 MHz, the risk is that one operator will get twice as many frequencies as another," explained Sébastien Soriano, President of the Arcep, in Le Figaro. Bouygues Telecom and Free fear that they will lose out in the deal as they are less well equipped financially to bid higher.

Iliad also called for the removal of the third milestone in the deployment of 5G sites - 12,000 at the end of 2025 - for operators who would not obtain the famous 60 MHz. Arcep did not grant this right, but this obligation has been reduced to 10,500 sites. An adjustment reflecting the many criticisms encountered by the initial schedule. This assumed an acceleration of 1,000 sites per year from 2020 to 2022 and then to 2,500/year in 2023-2024 and 4,000/year in 2025 alone.

Bouygues Telecom, Orange and Free replied that they were unplayable, citing technical, financial and administrative constraints. Operators simply do not have the means to make the "leap" of 4,000 sites initially expected in 2025, argues Bouygues Telecom. For whom, moreover, "there is also no capacitive need of this magnitude on this horizon".

8,000 sites in 2024 and 10,500 in 2025 finally but not only in urban areas. The Arcep intends to ensure that the deployment of 5G will also benefit low-density areas, in line with government expectations. The regulator initially proposed to extend this obligation to the 22,000 municipalities of priority deployment areas (PDAs) as defined by the 2015 decision on the allocation of 700 MHz frequencies.

Again, there was no unanimity on this idea. Bouygues Telecom is not going about it in four ways: "Hedging obligations are very heavy and inconsistent with the object sold". For the operator, the 3.4-3.8 GHz band is intended for uses primarily for capacity, so that its use "is not relevant in sparsely populated areas".

Also mentioned by other actors, an approach consisting in prioritizing 5G deployments on "territories that we are sure will not benefit from FttH before a date to be determined". One of the approaches mentioned by Cerema or by the Assembly of French Departments is to use fixed 5G to compensate for future deficiencies in very high wireline broadband.

Finally, the opportunity to add the ZDP perimeter to the very recent list of "Industrial Territories" is suggested by several actors: Cerema again, but also Banque des Territoires or Orange. An addition finally retained by the Arcep in its specifications.

The last point of contention on the part of operators is the granting of 5G licences for an initial period of only fifteen years, which can be extended by five years after the Arcep's assessment. The Authority considers that this period is "appropriate to the level of investment required to fulfil the obligations under the procedure". Not Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR: the trio believes that this will not be enough to make their investments profitable.

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Source : DegroupNews

Kosc Telecom was the solution devised by the public authorities to bring more competition to the business telecoms market. Just three years after its launch, Kosc is expected to file for bankruptcy leaving a slate of 120 million euros.

After the merger with SFR, Kosc acquired part of the activities of Numericable (Completel). Bpifrance had injected 9 million euros and OVH was also a shareholder via a contribution "in industry". The idea was to make Kosc the third man in the lucrative telecom business market, 85% owned by Orange and SFR.

In 2018, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation had in turn promised to provide 20 million euros to Kosc. It was without counting on a grain of sand: a lawsuit lost to SFR and the threat of having to pay it 20 million euros. For the Caisse, the risk was too high and decided to withdraw from the case, leading to the fall of the telecom operator.

A new game should be played at the helm of the commercial court, with potential buyers. Indeed, the telecoms sector has evolved since 2016 and Free and Bouygues Telecom have in turn launched themselves into the business market. Bouygues' subsidiary would also be a serious candidate for the takeover of Kosc, and would therefore be favoured by OVH.

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Source : Le Figaro

According to the Financial Times, Orange is preparing to split its mobile tower business, the pylons where 3G/4G equipment for mobile phone use is installed, into a separate entity. This could be a prelude to a partial or total sale later on. A new entity that can be valued between €8 and €10.3 billion. Stéphane Richard's group has the largest number of antennas in France (15,000 in total), and one of the largest in Europe (59,000 antennas on the Old Continent, in Africa and in the Middle East).

Orange will inform about its projects during its investor day scheduled for December 4, according to sources in the Financial Times. Its CEO stated last May that "the current appetite for infrastructure funds clearly reveals the intrinsic value of telecom networks". The French operator must ask itself the question of "maximizing the value" of its infrastructure, he said at the time.

This type of split and sale is a cash movement of telecom operators in search of cash. Last August, Free sold 70% of Iliad Tower Co. In 2018, SFR (Altice) partially sold SFR TowerCo while Bouygues Telecom initiated the movement in 2016 with two disposals for a total amount of 700 million euros.

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Source : BFM Business

When SFR was acquired by Numéricable in 2014, the parent company, Altice, made a number of commitments to the French Competition Authority in order to better promote this concentration in the telecoms sector. These commitments, which were entered into for a period of five years, should no longer be maintained, the gendarme said at the end of this period, on 28 October. With one exception: the agreement to co-develop the fibre in very dense areas concluded with Bouygues before the acquisition.

The French Competition Authority has therefore released Altice from several of its commitments concerning:

• the obligation to open the cable network to other operators, and not to use the information available to Altice to deploy its fibre network.
• the prohibition on offering cable offers in La Poste branches with which SFR had a distribution agreement.
• the maintenance of dark fibre (FON) or dedicated optical local loop (BLOD) offers "at least as advantageous as before the operation".

On the other hand, the competition police officer was more picky about the Faber contract concluded between SFR and Bouygues Telecom in 2010. A co-delivery agreement for the horizontal fibre optic network in 22 cities located in very dense areas (including Paris). Especially since Altice was called to order in 2017 because of "particularly serious breaches" of the execution of this contract. 40 million fine and injunctions to comply with deployment commitments co-financed by Bouygues Telecom.

The Authority decided to lift part of the injunctions: those, without penalty, requiring Altice to connect the buildings concerned by the agreement as from the 2017 decision. The competition police officer considers that Altice's interests are now "aligned with those of Bouygues Telecom" within the scope of the Faber contract. The parent company now favours FttH.

On the other hand, the injunctions under penalty payments for the stock of buildings that were to be fibrated before 2017 are maintained. The Authority is examining the progress of Patrick Drahi's group to determine whether it should also be released from these commitments. Its conclusions will be issued "in the first half of 2020".

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Source : DegroupNews

The wholesale-only operator Kosc is in the spotlight. Its president, Yann de Prince, confirmed that there are only a few weeks left to find a solution to his financial problems at his hearing in early October by the Senate.

"As the company had not yet reached operating balance, and could not therefore in principle convince the court of its ability to continue its activity, it was logical that we should proceed, not with a suspension of payment, but with outright liquidation," explained the director of the alternative wholesale operator.

"The process I have initiated gives the company a very short period of time, two months, to try to overcome its difficulties," he said. Yann de Prince mandated the Rothschild investment bank in early September to "find investors or any partner who could help save or take over the company".

"The outcome of the process initiated at the beginning of September is set for the end of October 2019. It may be extended for a further two months. Its main condition is the payment of the next salaries. This payment itself depends on a new commitment by shareholders or the lifting of SFR's seizures. If one or the other does not come true, we will probably no longer avoid the pitfall of liquidation," said Kosc's boss.

Facing serious cash flow problems, the operator has indeed seen its horizon darken considerably in recent weeks. The operator is uncertain following the Competition Authority's unfavourable decision concerning the takeover of Completel's DSL network, previously held by SFR, and the withdrawal of one of its major investors, Banque des territoires.

"Kosc is in a blocking situation at this time. On September 27, 2019, using the ADLC's decision as an instrument in the middle of a discussion process with creditors, SFR proceeded to a protective seizure of the company's accounts and all trade receivables. As a result, Kosc no longer has any liquidity. Bailiffs regularly come to our offices. From the end of October, it will face the problem of salary payments unless our shareholders intervene further," said Kosc's Director of Financial Control and Regulatory Affairs.

It is now time for an emergency. "Kosc's situation is now simple: either in the coming weeks, the shareholders will be sufficiently convinced and will decide to provide sufficient funds to allow the company to regain a certain margin of manoeuvre, necessary for the implementation of a sustainable solution, or the company will be liquidated or sold," explained its president.

Especially since OVH, one of its historical investors, could well play the role of the girl of the air since the telecom activities are no longer a priority for him.
But the operator has no shortage of contenders for its takeover. The operator's president thus stated "Despite a most unfavourable situation, despite the urgency with which these possible partners are asked to position themselves, sixteen[candidates] have already expressed themselves" by specifying that they are mainly industrial partners.

Bouygues Telecom and Iliad could be candidates for this takeover. This information should still be taken on a conditional basis, but it might seem plausible when both operators have views on this lucrative market.

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Source : ZDNet

The operator has launched the marketing of its Very High Speed subscriptions, up to 1 Gb/s, in many cities. To do so, it relied on SFR's FttH network. These are AMII zones, moderately dense zones, where the red square operator is the only one to manoeuvre. It installs a shared optical fibre network there, which other ISPs will then be able to use.


More than 50 cities in some 15 departments are affected by the arrival of Bouygues Telecom's offers. The operator is thus following in Free's footsteps, which has been investing in these territories for several months now.

Bouygues Telecom, which has not been present so far, seems to have launched a vast marketing effort since the end of September. In particular on the outskirts of major cities such as Calais, Cannes, Marignane, Nantes, Toulon, Toulouse and Orléans as well as in several major municipalities in the Ile-de-France region.


In these regions, competition will therefore be somewhat fiercer since at the beginning of the year only SFR, RED, Orange and Sosh offers were available. For several months now, Free has been growing in power, so it is not surprising to see Bouygues Telecom complete the picture. This is to keep pace with these territories with hundreds of thousands of potential customers.


At the same time, Bouygues Telecom is whipping up new ground in major cities. At the beginning of 2019, its very high speed Internet offers were still absent from many large cities located in so-called very dense areas (ZTD). But the situation is gradually improving with the arrival of its fibre in Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Poitiers, Rennes, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Toulon or even some Ile-de-France municipalities such as very recently Fontenay-sous-Bois.

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Source : Ariase

Kosc was unsuccessful against Altice and contested the decision taken by the Competition Authority. Indeed, seized on the occasion of the sale of Completel's copper network, the competition police last week issued its verdict: "there is nothing to define that Altice has committed a fault with regard to its obligations".

This is a major blow for the wholesale provider of telecom services to operators in the enterprise market, which has been denouncing SFR's parent company's late deliveries for months. This decision is all the more difficult to accept as its financial equation has become significantly more complicated.

But the operator does not intend to stop there since he "rejects", in a press release, the verdict of the Competition Authority and announces that he will bring the case before the Conseil d'État. A referral "motivated by the numerous irregularities that have marked the follow-up of the case by the Competition Authority, including the unexplained duration of its investigation in a context of urgency and the probable violation of its secrecy".

In addition, the company believes that the abandonment of Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts group), one of its main supporters, can only be explained by an understanding of the result favourable to Altice - SFR upstream.

Kosc warns against a prospect of consolidation that it now considers itself the "privileged target of a hostile acquisition" in view of its financial fragility. An operation that would "de facto close the business telecommunications market to the detriment not only of the ecosystem of hundreds of digital business service operators but also of the beginning of catching up on the digitalisation backlog of French SMEs and VSEs", warns the operator.

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Source : DegroupNews

The telecoms police officer has just sent an early formal notice to Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Iliad-Free regarding the "New Mobile Deal". Indeed, Arcep considers that the commitments made by operators under this agreement, dating from January 2018, are not progressing fast enough.

At the time, the State agreed to renew part of the frequencies granted to operators for ten years and free of charge. A "gift" with a counterpart, however: the operators had undertaken to cover the territory more, particularly in the famous "white areas".

By the end of 2020, they must have converted all their existing 2G and 3G sites to 4G and improve mobile coverage on transport routes (from 2018) and inside buildings (from 2019).

But a year and a half after the signing, the regulator would find that progress was insufficient. "The regulator has no confidence in the operators, he believes that this case is dragging on," explains a source familiar with the case.

If the targets were not met by the 2020 deadline, early warning would make it possible to initiate sanctions more quickly without wasting time.

Aware that operators have always had difficulty meeting their commitments, the government has organised progress reports on the progress of the work. This was obviously not enough.

However, in June 2018, the government published the first 485 sites on which operators had to install their 4G antennas. For its part, the Arcep had launched its quarterly dashboard. But several observers had already warned of the magnitude of the task. "The deadlines were super-short. We could legitimately be concerned," recalls one participant today.

Operators, on the other hand, deny any delay. "Operators are deploying on schedule. ...] We are on the ground every day to solve administrative and technical challenges with the support of communities and government services. Arcep is welcome in the territories and will thus become even more aware of the collective success underway to finally solve the problem of white areas," said Arthur Dreyfuss, President of the French Telecommunications Federation. Summer is therefore likely to be turbulent.

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Source : Les Echos

See you at the Family Kitchen in Grenoble on May 15th! Isère Fibre, a subsidiary of Altice-SFR, and Rezopole invite you to the 1st Aperezo of the year on Isère soil.

On the agenda: presentation of the project for the digital development of the territory followed by a cocktail reception with Italian scents.