Paris, 21 July 2000
The collège of Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (ART) has accepted the decisions of the companies Siris and Completel to decline the authorisations they had requested to operate a radio local loop in one of the French regions.
Siris (100%-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom), had been a candidate for all regions, but considered that two of them (Corsica and Auvergne) where not sufficient for it.
Completel which had applied only at the regional level, and which, following the selection procedure had been offered a license in four regions (Auvergne, Corsica, Franche-Comté and Limousin), chose to withdraw its applications, stating that the coverage objectives it had presented for these regions were, in fact, incompatible with its financial forecasts.
It is important to remember that the two operators having been offered a national radio local loop license (First Mark and Fortel) are required to provide coverage for all regions in Metropolitan France. This means that every region will receive the services of at least two radio local loop operators. Four operators have been chosen for 18 regions, and three operators in two other regions.
As had been planned and previously announced, ART will launch a new selection process for the two regional radio local loop licenses in Auvergne and Corsica, as well as for one license in Franche-Comté and Limousin. In these regions, should operators so desire, there may be two additional regional operators in addition to the two national radio local loop operators.
ART is certain that candidates will apply for this new process.
This new selection process demonstrates ART's commitment to regional development across France, by offering each region the same frequency quality, to ensure that there are no inequalities in the capacities made available to each region.
