PARIS (WiMAX Day). The Ministry of Economics, Finance and Industry in France has recently announced that it will permit transfer and re-sale of licensed WiMAX spectrum on “secondary markets”. Following the dramatic €125 million auction of 3.5 GHz frequencies in July this year, the new law is expected to open the French WiMAX market to international competitors.

The new French Article L.42-3 of the telecom code CPCE was approved on 14th August 2006 and will allow for the full transfer of rights attached to radio frequencies. This article follows the same provisions of Article 9 of directive 2002/21/CE of the European Parliament concerning the transfer of utilisation rights of radio frequencies.

In France, the holder of radio spectrum licenses obtained in the July auction will be permitted to transfer their rights and ownership for all or a portion of their licensed spectrum. Importantly, it would also permit the transfer of all regulatory and financial obligations of any licensed spectrum. The sole provision of the article is that the regulator must be notified of any transfers.

The July auction delivered regional 3.5 GHz licenses to telecom players including Bolloré and Maxtel (a joint venture of Altitude Telecom and autoroute operator Rhine-Rhone). Following the announcement of the auction, the French Regulator ARCEP published a list of 35 “candidates” who were selected from 175 letter of interest they received.

Surprisingly, among those 35 “candidates” not approved by ARCEP for participation in the auction was Clearwire, who established a French subsidiary and made a joint application with the European cable operator UPC (formerly a unit of Liberty Global). In their application, Clearwire had applied for a license in every region of France. ARCEP stated that its criteira for selecting candidates for the auction was based on a candidates ability to develop the license, its technical ability to manage the license, and its financial resources to pay for the license.