(Telecompaper) French telecom regulator Arcep announced on Twitter that the auction for 700 MHz spectrum will begin on 16 November. Until now the regulator had indicated that the auction would take place in November for the frequencies to be allocated by the end of the year. All four French MNOs, Orange, Free, Bouygues Telecom and Numericable-SFR will take part. The auction is expected to take a few days, writes Les Echos. The process will involve eight bidding rounds a day, with the price of each 5 MHz of spectrum rising by EUR 5 million with each round. The starting price is EUR 416 million per block. A total of six blocks, or 30 MHz, is being put up for auction for a minimum of EUR 2.5 billion in total. Free, which did not take part in earlier 800 MHz auctions will be able to buy up to three blocks, while its competitors are limited a maximum of two each. The spectrum is currently used for digital terrestrial TV but is due to be refarmed to mobile communications from April 2016 in the Ile-de-France region and between October 2017 and June 2019 for the rest of the country.