1. Commercial launch of UMTS service

1.1 UMTS market in France

• First UMTS licenses: in 2007, there are three cell phone operators in mainland France: Bouygues Telecom, Orange France and Société Française du Radiotéléphone (SFR). Each has been authorized to use frequencies in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands to operate its second-generation (2G) GSM (but also GPRS and EDGE) network: Orange France and SFR since March 25, 1991, and Bouygues Telecom since December 8, 1994. With the arrival of the third-generation (3G) UMTS standard, operators were authorized to use frequencies in the 2 GHz band: Orange France and...