The auction for 5G spectrum in France ended on Thursday.
The sale, led by the telecoms regulator Arcep, caps a one-year process for mobile operators Orange, Altice Europe SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Iliad. Four companies competed for the acquisition of 11 blocks of 10 Megahertz (MHz), or 110 MHz.
The cost of a single block reached a final price of 126 million euros on Thursday, after 17 laps over three days, Arcep said.
This brings the total price of the entire spectrum to 2.8 billion euros, or 630 million euros above the floor price set by the government.
The sale included a total of 310 Megahertz (MHz). The government had already agreed to sell a 50 MHz block to each telecom operator for 350 million euros, or 1.4 billion euros in total.
The remaining 110 MHz that were on sale reached a final price of 126 million euros per block on Thursday, bringing the total amount of the auction to 1.39 billion euros.
Orange was allocated four blocks, followed by SFR (3 blocks), Bouygues Telecom (2 blocks) and Iliad (2 blocks), Arcep said.
