SFR and Bouygues Telecom ready to share their mobile networks - Expansion

This would be a first in France. The two French operators Bouygues Telecom and SFR announced Monday that it entered into exclusive negotiations to share some of their mobile networks.

two operators wish to “conclude before the end of this strategic agreement” that would give them “how to be among the key players in the modernization of the digital economy in France,” according to a joint statement. Each operator retain a capacity for independent innovation and total commercial independence. An arrangement that evokes some existing roaming agreement between Free and Orange with the difference that it does not rely on an exchange but on an operating lease. This type of alliance is more common however in the rest of Europe.

The objective is to achieve savings in both the capital costs to deploy the network on maintenance costs. And thus be able to offer attractive rates.

State, watchful, waiting for the opinion of the ARCEP

ministers Productive Recovery Arnaud Montebourg and Innovation, Fleur Pellerin, said in a statement it had noted “the willingness of companies (…) to engage in exclusive discussions regarding the pooling of their 2G, 3G and 4G networks. ” This strategy of sharing “is particularly appropriate when the margin levels are more constrained, as is the case at present”, they responded.

“Both groups thus have a common infrastructure for each of the two operators to use frequencies available to it,” the statement said. Ministers say that “the government will remain vigilant on the continuation of these discussions and their implementation, so that each player continues to take its share of investment in the deployment in new networks.”

The agreement will be submitted prior to the notice of the representative bodies of the two companies and the review of the Competition Authority and the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP).

In an opinion issued in March, the Competition Authority had specified the conditions under which pooling can be seen and observed that such reconciliation “can save costs and improve coverage.”

100% subsidiary of Vivendi, SFR had late March 2013 nearly 21 million mobile customers and more than 5 million subscribers to broadband Internet. Bouygues Telecom for its 11.3 million mobile customers and 1.9 million customers for fixed broadband.