The first day of the French 700-MHz spectrum auction drew to a close on Monday with the running total standing at €2.71 billion.
France’s telecom regulator announced that after seven rounds of bidding, the price of spectrum had reached €451 million per 5 MHz block.
Bidding has already crept above the reserve price of €416 million per 2×5 MHz block.
&q uot;The auction is not over," Arcep said in a statement. "The collective demand of the bidders is significantly greater than the six [available] blocks."
Bidding will recommence on Tuesday at a price of €456 million per block, it added.
France’s four main mobile operators – Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Numericable-SFR and Orange – are all taking part in the auction.
Under the auction rules, no bidder may win more than three blocks of 700-MHz spectrum.
However, the actual limit for each operator is set based on the amount of sub-1 GHz spectrum it already owns. Arcep has capped the total amount of spectrum any player can hold across the 700-MHz, 800-MHz and 900-MHz bands at 2×30 MHz.
