Arcep, the French regulator, has published the results of a public consultation into the award of the country’s fourth 3G license raising hopes that the long-awaited tender for the new license could be underway soon. According to an official statement, the regulator said it had received opinions from 23 different parties during the consultation process, which it claimed reflected “the interest of the parties, both new entrant candidates and existing operators, in obtaining access to spectrum in the 2.1 GHz frequency band.” However, the respondents unanimously rejected an earlier recommendation that the frequencies should be divided into several packages open to all operators. Instead, Arcep said it was looking at “procedures that give a priority to all or part of the frequencies to a newcomer, following similar conditions that governed the previous tenders.” However, Arcep gave no information on when the tender may begin, nor any financial criteria.

The French government is keen to issue the fourth 3G license in order to boost competition in the market, which remains dominated by just three operators: France Telecom’s Orange, SFR and Bouygues. An earlier attempt to auction the fourth license was abandoned after Arcep received just one bid – from Iliad subsidiary Free Mobile – that it deemed was too low.