France: Telecom and Information Technology Update

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SUBJECT: France: Telecom and Information Technology Update

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1. This is another in a series of periodic updates on the
French telecommunications and information technology
sectors, including internet and e-commerce.

Contents:
-- France Telecom's debt on the rise (para 2)
-- GOF technology and information society office merged with
regional and small business administration (para 3)
-- France's antitrust watchdog wants more open mobile market
(para 4)
-- Tele2 France to launch mobile offering (para 5)
-- FT's Orange EDGEs way to business community (para 6)
-- Cegetel resumes merger talks with Neuf Telecom (para 7)
-- Alcatel tests WiMax in France (para 8)
-- ART launches public consultations on professional mobile
networks (para 9)
-- FT to select single global advertising firm (para 10)
-- French resistance to (what they see as a) "hyperpuissant"
(over-dominant) Google (para 11)


2. France Telecom's debt on the rise: France Telecom (FT)
has seen its debt rise by 6 billion Euros to 49.9 billion
Euros (one euro equals 0.77 dollars),as it conforms to new
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
accounting rules. The aim of the new rules is to harmonize
the global presentation of financial results, making it
easier to compare companies across borders. Under the new
IFRS rules, FT's 2004 operating profit has been reduced to
9.3 billion Euros from 10.8 billion Euros previously. FT
said the move to International Financial Reporting Standards
would not impact its ongoing operating performance. FT is
in the third and final year of a recovery plan to reduce its
debts to less than 40 billion Euros by 2006. The firm built
up its vast debts due to an ambitious expansion plan in the
late 1990s. Its debt peaked at nearly 70 billion euros in

2002.


3. GOF technology and information society office merged
with regional and small business administration: A
Government order published earlier this year provided
details on the on-going reorganization of the French
Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. As part of that
effort, the familiar DIGITIP ("Direction General de
l'Industrie des Technologies de l'Information et des Posts")
and its Office of Technology and Information Society
("Service des Technologies et de la Societe de
l'Information" - STSI) have been merged with the office for
regional business and small and medium-sized industrial
enterprises. Since the merger, the new entity is called the
General Enterprise Directorate ("Direction General des
Entreprises") in charge of business policy, information and
advocacy of innovation and entrepreneurship. STSI is still
responsible for electronic components, electronics, computer
and audiovisual equipment, electronic communications,
information society and space. Also, the organization of
STSI remains the same with four separate bureaus or "sub-
directorates": 1) networks, multimedia and on-line
communications; 2) components, software and professional
electronics; 3) regulation of electronic communications and
forecast and analysis; 4) institutional relations. STSI is
not located within the main Ministerial offices, but as
before in a close by annex.


4. France's antitrust watchdog wants more open mobile
market: Arguing that France's mobile phone market remained
dominated by three companies (France Telecom's Orange,
SFR/Cegetel, and Bouygues Telecom),France's competition
watchdog, the Competition Council, in early April called on
French telecoms regulator ART to intervene. The Competition
Council reportedly sees elements of collusion by the three
mobile phone operators, particularly in the wholesale
market. In an effort to break this collective dominant
position, ART has examined giving more space to mobile
virtual network operators (MVNOs). These operators have no
mobile networks of their own, but they rent minutes
wholesale from the network operators and sell them to
consumers at a lower cost, undercutting the incumbents'
offer on the market. This opens up the possibility of
further liberalization of the French mobile phone market,
lowering costs for consumers but eroding the profit margin
of operators.


5. Tele2 France to launch mobile telephony offering:
Telephone operator Tele2 France announced in early April
that it had signed a mobile virtual network operator
agreement of the enhanced service provider type with Orange
France. No financial details were disclosed. Tele2 France
will launch the mobile telephony offering before the end of

2005.


6. FT's Orange EDGEs way to business community: France
Telecom subsidiary Orange will invest 200 million Euros in
France to shift its lower quality, mobile network
capabilities to high-speed data technology known as EDGE
(Enhanced Data for Global Evolution). The two-year
investment plan, which makes Orange the first French mobile
operator to sell EDGE technology, is aimed at expanding
Orange's offering of high-speed data services, such as
Internet access and television programming via internet, to
90% of businesses with over 50 employees, and 85% of
individual subscribers. EDGE does not carry as much data as
third generation, or 3G, technology can, but it costs
operators less and provides data at a speed close to that of
3G quality. The launch of EDGE will reduce Orange's
dependency on 3G mobile technology. It also brings the
number of Orange customers using Orange high-speed services
(via EDGE, 3G and WiFi technologies) to a total of two
million.


7. Cegetel resumes merger talks with Neuf Telecom: French
fixed telecom operator Cegetel, has resumed merger
negotiations with rival Neuf Telecom. Talks originally fell
through last year over price and management issues. (See
our April 2004 edition for more details.) If successful,
the merger would signal further consolidation in the French
telecoms market, as telecom operators seek to boost their
broadband offerings. In mid-April 2005, Italian incumbent
Telecom Italia acquired Tiscali's French internet subsidiary
Liberty Surf, which exceeds both Cegetel and Neuf Telecom in
its number of ADSL subscribers. The merged company would
become the largest broadband internet provider after the
market leader, France Telecom's Wanadoo. With a high demand
for broadband services, competition for new customers has
been intense and operators have been slashing prices.


8. Alcatel tests WiMax in France: In early April, French
telecoms equipment manufacturer Alcatel signed a partnership
agreement with Paris airports service provider ADP Telecom
for a trial of WiMAX technology. ADP is to manage the pilot
networks, which will be deployed across a number of airports
in France. ADP said it would use the fixed and nomadic
aspects of WiMAX as a complementary technology to its
existing WiFi offerings, and as a method of delivering
mobile applications across a greater distance. The news
follows an announcement last month that French telecoms
regulator ART has been preparing the means of allocating new
frequencies in the 3.4-3.8GHz band for the deployment of WLL
networks to allow for the development of WiMAX technologies.
The regulator said that the auctioning of such spectrum was
one possible option, although the authority has not yet set
a date for the tender of the licenses.


9. ART launches public consultations on professional mobile
networks: On April 12, France's telecoms regulator ART
launched consultations on the introduction of broadband
terrestrial mobile service networks, with specific features,
such as independent Private Mobile Radio or PMR networks,
which include alternating voice services (push to talk),
group calls, voice and data services in packet mode; and
Public Access Mobile Radio or PAMR networks, which are open
to the public and carry PMR functions. This consultation is
part of the move to shift mobility to high speeds. Although
it covers both independent PMR and PAMR networks, the
question of whether to introduce open to the public PAMR
networks (in the 450-470 MHz band) is the primary subject of
the consultations. Based on responses, ART will be able to
establish the method and means of allocating available
frequencies for broadband PMR/PAMR networks in autumn 2005,
and launch an allocation procedure by wintertime.


10. FT to select single global advertising firm: France
Telecom will soon appoint a single advertising agency to
globally market all of its communications brands, including
Orange and Wanadoo. Company executives have said that they
will meet with some 30 contenders in Paris, and the winner
will be announced this summer. The successful agency will
develop a global ad strategy that sources have described as
"France Telecom's grand plan" and could involve a
rebranding. There is ongoing speculation that Orange and
Wanadoo are considering merging their businesses in the UK
following talks that began in 2004.


11. French resistance to (what they see as a )
"hyperpuissant" (over-dominant) Google: In a replay of his
stillborn efforts two years ago to create a French version
of CNN, President Chirac called on his Culture Minister and
on the Head of France's National Library to create a
homegrown effort to scan and digitize French texts so that
they can be viewed on the Internet. This move follows
Google's announcement last December to scan millions of
books and periodicals into its search engine over the next
few years. In an unrelated development, Google recently met
with another type of French resistance, this time from two
travel companies, Luteciel and Viaticum. The two companies
successfully challenged Google's practice of selling
Internet advertising from rivals designed to appear with Web
searches for the trademarked Web site name "Bourse des
Vols," or flight exchange. In March, A French Court of
Appeals found Google guilty of "trade counterfeiting." This
is an important precedent in a country where 15 similar
cases are still pending.

WOLFF