FACTBOX-Possible bidders for French mobile licence

PARIS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - French telecom regulator ARCEP is accepting bids for a fourth mobile phone licence.

Few observers expect there to be many bidders for the licence, which will cost 240 million euros. Only Iliad, a French Internet service provider, has said clearly that it intends to bid. Several other firms have studied the opportunity but backed out of the running.

But there could still be surprise entrants before the noon deadline on Oct. 29.

ILIAD (ILD.PA)

Iliad, which markets "triple play" packages of broadband, fixed phone, and TV in France under the brand name Free, is the only company that has said publicly that it intends to bid for the licence.

Iliad was the only applicant in the last round of bidding for the fourth mobile licence in 2007. But its bid was rejected because it wanted to pay for the licence in instalments.

Iliad plans to spend 1 billion euros to build a national mobile network in the next five to seven years.

Free has built is brand around low-cost services, selling its triple-play bundle for 29.99 euros per month. It says that it intends to greatly lower the price of mobile services in France, dividing the mobile bill of a typical household by half.

This low-cost strategy could be disruptive for the existing players France Telecom, SFR and Bouygues.

NUMERICABLE, VIRGIN MOBILE AND ORASCOM TELECOM

* Numericable, a privately held French cable operator, said in September that it was considering applying for the licence "as part of a consortium."

Numericable hasn't said more about who its partners might be, but analysts and media reports have said it was in talks with Virgin Mobile and Egyptian telecom operator Orascom Telecom (ORTE.CA).

For Numericable, expanding into mobile would make sense from a strategic point of view. It already has a client base and a national cable infrastructure with lines in 9.6 million homes.

But analysts question whether Numericable has the financial firepower neccesary for such a big project. The firm is in the midst of renegotiating its debt covenants with bankers.

Its shareholders Cinven [CINV.UL], Carlyle Group [CYL.UL] and Altice would also need to back the project. A decision is expected on the debt by Nov 2.

* Virgin Mobile is already present in France as a virtual mobile operator, which means it does not have its own infrastructure but rents space on other operators' networks.

Virgin Mobile has said it would consider taking part in a consortium to bid for the fourth licence but would not bid on its own.

Its parent company Omer Telecom, which runs the brands Virgin Mobile, Breizh Mobile and Tele2France, has about 1.6 million clients in France.

* The director of Egyptian group Orascom (ORTE.CA), Naguib Sawiris told the French newspaper le Figaro in July that he was interested in entering the French mobile market.

But Sawiris said at a recent meeting with analysts in Paris that he did not intend to bid for the fourth licence. [ID:nLC40960]

According to analysts present at the meeting, Sawiris said the regulatory conditions made the opportunity too difficult.

For an analysis on the fourth French telecom licence, double click on [ID:nLK374445]

(Reporting by Marie Mawad, Writing by Leila Abboud, Editing by Sitaraman Shankar)