France's three mobile network operators (MNOs), Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom told president Nicolas Sarkozy that they would back his concept of eliminating advertising on public TV by levying a tax on operators. Challenges magazine writes that the condition for the companies' support was the assurance that they would remain as the sole 3G network operators. This leaves Iliad's Free subsidiary and other potential mobile entrants out in the cold. The Attali Commission's long-awaited report on economic liberalisation in France argues in favour of the emergence of a fourth UMTS network operator to stimulate competition and lower end-user prices. It also support aggressive efforts to accelerate very high speed network rollouts.
