France begins public consultation on Starlink after its license was revoked last week

SpaceX was the loser of a court ruling last week that saw them without a license to offer Starlink satellite internet service in France.
The decision was based on the fact that Arcep, an independent French agency in charge of telecommunications regulation, had not held public consultations before granting the license in February 2021.
The court said that since the service “could impact the market for high-speed Internet access and affect the interests of end users”, public consultations were required by law.
Acting quickly, Arcep is now inviting the public to comment on whether SpaceX should be allowed to provide service on two different radio frequencies.
The deadline for submitting comments is May 9, 2022.
In a statement, the agency said it does not believe consultation is necessary as it does not consider Starlink’s availability to have a material effect on the market, nor does it affect the interests of end users.
They also cited the fact that other satellite Internet services were already available in France.
“The frequency bands envisaged allow the coexistence of several satellite systems and will not cause a shortage of frequencies. In addition, there are already other satellite broadband providers with several tens of thousands of subscribers out of the more than 17 million broadband subscribers in France. (Going through Advanced Television)
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