TELECOMMUNICATIONS: FRENCH REGULATOR DEMANDS NEW PRICE CUTS.

The French telecoms regulation authority, ART, has begun negotiations with three mobile phone operators over new price reductions for calls made from fixed to mobile telephones, the operator SFR revealed on November 27. "These reductions relate to the 2005 to 2007 period, and will come on top of the cuts of 40% made between 2002 and 2004", the spokesman said. The negotiations under way between the regulator and the three operators, Orange (France Telecom group), SFR (Vivendi Universal) and Bouygues Telecom (Bouygues Group), concern the evolution of the price of calls from fixed phones to mobiles, which are charged to the person who is making the call. The previous agreement, signed at the end of 2001, which allowed for a reduction of 40% by 2004, will expire at the end of 2004. It stipulates that in January 2004, wholesale tariffs will be reduced by 12.5%. This will establish the wholesale tariff at 14.94 cents per minute, and should immediately have an effect on retail prices.

ART president Paul Champsaur, speaking recently at the IDATE international conference in Montpellier, said that as soon as the European Directives on telecoms had been transposed into the national legislation, probably by mid-2004, ART would have to "define the...

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