French MNOs 'tax for exclusivity'
January 28, 2008
France’s three mobile network operators; Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, have told president Nicolas Sarkozy that they would back his concept of eliminating advertising on public TV by levying a tax on mobile TV operators (and ISPs) in return for a guarantee there will be no more 3G operators.
This would leave Iliad’s Free subsidiary and other potential mobile entrants out in the cold. The Attali Commission’s long-awaited report on economic liberalisation in France argues in favour of the emergence of a fourth UMTS network operator to stimulate competition and lower end-user prices. It also supports aggressive efforts to accelerate high speed network rollouts.