Review of WiMAX in France finds delays and missed deadlines
Saturday, September 27th, 2008 – 9:40 amA compliance probe launched earlier this year by France’s regulatory agency found WiMAX deployment milestones in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band had not been met. New commentary from market research firm Ovum’s Julien Grivolas concludes that countries with a developed broadband infrastructure, such as France, will relegate fixed WiMAX services to communities where DSL and mobile broadband services do not exist today. No differentiation in services and the high cost of yet-to-be introduced mobile devices are reasons for this conclusion.
France’s Regulatory Authority of Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP) auctioned 3.5 GHz licenses in July 2006 for 44 regions. Some regional services are commercially available, while no national network has been launched. Monitoring by the regulatory body found in June that only 15% of the promised 3,564 WiMAX broadcast sites were operational.
More about WiMAX license holders in France missing commitments to launch services is available from WiMax.com
