(Telecompaper) The French secretary of state for the telecom sector, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, said that the 3.4-3.8 GHz spectrum on sale in the forthcoming 5G auction will have a minimum price of EUR 2.2 billion. In an interview with Les Echos, she explained that the country's four operators will each be able to acquire a block of 50 MHz at a fixed price of EUR 350 million in the first phase of the award process. After the allocation of the four blocks, totalling 200 MHz, operators will have to bid for the remaining 110 MHz of spectrum in an auction that will see each block of 10 MHz selling for a starting price of EUR 70 million. At the end of the two-part tender process, the maximum spectrum holding that an operator can obtain is 100 MHz.