PARIS (WiMAX Day). There has been heightened activity surrounding WiMAX in France following an announcement made by The Regulatory Authority of Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP) last week that it would investigate the deployment obligations of WiMAX spectrum licensees.

Two years after ARCEP awarded 44 regional licenses for 3.5 GHz spectrum, a national network has yet to be launched, and only limited WiMAX activity has been reported on a regional basis.

ARCEP said it will investigate the operations of license holders to confirm if they are meeting their roll-out obligations. The regulator said it will make its control until the end of June, and any company that has not met its obligations could face suspension of their license, or a fine equal to three percent of their revenue.

The regulatory wake-up call is said to be behind announcements this week from two of the  largest WiMAX license holders.

Frequencies à louer
The Société Haut Débit (SHD), a subsidiary of GSM operator SFR and alternative telecoms provider Neuf Cegetel, announced on Monday that it had entered into a WVNO agreement with the regional broadband group Numéo in Ile-de-France (Paris and the centre of France) and Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur (Southern France, including Marseille, St Tropez, Cannes and Nice).

The agreement will allow Numéo to bundle WiMAX services in these regions where it cannot provide ADSL services. Since 2004, Numéo has become a significant provider of Internet access in the rural regions of France, and may very well become the largest provider of rural WiMAX services by the end of 2008.

Earlier this year, Numéo entered a similar agreement with HDRR and Altitude Telecom to re-sell WiMAX services in the cities of Loiret, Seine-et-Marne and Quimper, with an additional eight regions reportedly to follow.

Frequencies à vendre
Bolloré Telecom announced yesterday that it will acquire eight WiMAX licenses from the HDRR consortium controlled by TDF. A report in Le Figaro said that Bolloré Telecom (90% owned by  Group Bolloré and 10% by Hub Telecom, a subsidiary of Aeroports de Paris) will pay “several million euros” for the licenses, and will include several networks that already have been deployed. HDRR paid a total of EUR 3.4 million for its ten licenses at auction in 2006.

A report in Les Echoes quoted Bolloré Telecom CEO Marc Taieb saying: “We needed these eight licences – as well as the 12 we currently have – to roll-out a national network and launch a wireless broadband internet offering across the country.”

In 2006 Bolloré was awarded twelve licenses for which it paid EUR 78 million, and which cover the regions of Ile-de-France, Aquitaine, Brittany, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrenees, Picardy, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, Corsica, Auvergne, Limousin, Franche-Comte and Rhone-Alpes. Licenses for the regions acquired from HDRR include Upper and Lower Normandy, Lorraine, Loire, Poitou-Charentes, Champagne-Ardenne and Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

The acquisition is expected to be approved by ARCEP, as the sale and transfer of WiMAX licenses are permitted in France according to the French Article L.42-3 of the telecom code CPCE, and other WiMAX licenses have been traded previously. Following regulatory approval, Bolloré would have licenses for twenty regions, covering the majority of France, and would make it one of the leading WiMAX operators.

Bolloré has yet to announce any commercial launch for their WiMAX services, and its delay has been due to the lack of certified equipment for the IEEE 802.16e standard, according to Taieb. However the company has reported extensive testing of WiMAX in Paris and environs over the last year.