Iliad’s Free Mobile, the latest entrant in the French mobile market, has signalled its intention to join the proposed network sharing agreement between rivals SFR and Bouygues.
Iliad chief executive Maxime Lombardini made the proposal in a letter to…
Iliad’s Free Mobile, the latest entrant in the French mobile market, has signalled its intention to join the proposed network sharing agreement between rivals SFR and Bouygues.
Iliad chief executive Maxime Lombardini made the proposal in a letter to the CEOs of Free’s competitors and copied to France’s competition and telecoms regulators.
Lombardini said it would be a “major destabilising factor” if the agreement between the two large operators did not make room for Free.
According to the letter published by newspaper Les Echos, Lombardini asked the companies to make proposals to allow Free to participate in the sharing agreement.
Free’s entrance into the French market in 2012 sparked a price war with the three historical operators – Orange, SFR, and Bouygues – losing market shares rapidly.
In just two years, the smallest operator has taken about 10% of the mobile market.
To address that, SFR and Bouygues entered exclusive talks about mobile network sharing in July. The project, which is awaiting regulatory approval and has not launched to date, would result in significant capex savings although both telcos would remain commercially independent.
Lombardini said in the letter that the agreement between SFR and Bouygues will likely “cover a very large part of the country and more than half the population”.
Les Echos suggests that Free’s comments are also a message addressed to incumbent Orange, with which it has a 3G roaming agreement.
In a video interview with the newspaper earlier this week, Orange CEO Stephane Richard said the size of the French market did not justify four operators and that the potential agreement between SFR and Bouygues would be “a form of consolidation”.
Richard however stressed he is not considering a similar move with Free Mobile.
Bouygues declined to comment while SFR was not immediately available.
