France’s telecoms authority, Arcep, has said that the country’s 5G spectrum auction, due to take place in April, will now be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. A new date for the auction is yet to be released.
France on lockdown
France imposed a lockdown on its population from Tuesday this week for at least two weeks, in order to try to contain the virus.
Yesterday we reported that Iliad CEO, Thomas Reynaud, said that the 5G frequencies spectrum auction was ‘likely’ to be postponed, so this news confirms the speculation.
2.17 billion euros
The French government has been aiming to raise 2.17 billion euros ($2.38 billion) or more from the 5G spectrum auction. The money from the auction will allow the kick-start upgrades of French mobile infrastructure, which will give faster download speeds and enable IoT applications to be used.
