French telecoms companies Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Orange and SFR have applied for the country's new 5G telecoms spectrum, the electronic communications regulation authority (Arcep) said on Wednesday.

"All four candidates have expressed their desire to obtain one of the four blocks of 50 MHz that will be awarded in exchange for the commitments set forth in the procedure," the regulator said in a statement.

Companies that did not submit a bid will not be able to participate in the award procedure for the bloc of 50 MHz, nor in the procedure for allocating the frequencies that remain available after this first stage, it added.

After examining the tender bids, the regulator will publish the list of the candidates eligible to participate in the spectrum auctions, along with the results of the 50 MHz block allocation stage.

Arcep added it was hoping to award the 5G licenses by June at the latest.

In December 2019, the government had fixed the price of a bloc of 50 MHz at 350 million euros (380.98 million U.S. dollars ), and the price of an additional bloc of 10 MHz at 70 million euros. (1 euro = 1.088 U.S. dollars)