"We are studying the possibility of a flotation before the end of the year," said Cyril Poidatz. "But it's not a burning issue, it could happen at the beginning of next year." Free also announced an earlier investment by Goldman Sachs of some 100 million francs, which the US investment bank provided back in January. Free didn't want to publicize the investment until "la rentrée", the period in early September when business picks up again after the summer holiday, but the information leaked to the press yesterday, Poidatz said.

Currently, Goldman Sachs holds 5 percent of Free and the employees 10 percent, while Iliad, which also runs websites such as emploi.com, finaction.com and annu.com, holds 80 percent.

Before its planned IPO, Free plans to continue developing its own telecommunications network via its wholly-owned Linx subsidiary, said Poidatz. A large part of the Goldman Sachs investment has already gone into developing the Linx network, he said. Once the local loop is unbundled in France in January 2001, Free will offer telecommunications and ADSL services via its own network. Earlier this year, Free pulled its ADSL offering, citing France Telecom's monopolistic control of the local loop infrastructure as a barrier to third-party providers offering quality service.

Since the beginning of the year, Free has also been working to reinforce its own IP network used for its subscription-free ISP service, which now supports some 550,000 active users. In total, Free has some 1.1 million users signed up to use its free ISP service and hopes to attain 1.6 million by year-end.

Like most subscription-free ISPs, Free makes a large part of its revenues (50 percent) from call kickback charges, paid out by France Telecom when calls pass over its local loop to terminate on Free's network. But it also hopes to make 25 percent of its revenues from advertising and 25 percent from e-commerce.

Also before its IPO, Free will bring all of its advertising activities in house, grouped under an Iliad-owned advertising agency called Salango. Over the past year, Free has worked with this agency, as well as outsider providers, said Poidatz. However, the idea is to centralize the sale of all Free advertising space under Salanga.

One thing Free is not considering is a totally free service where users pay neither communications charges nor ISP fees to access the Internet for a limited amount of time each month, already offered by the likes of Infonie and Liberty Surf in France. Unlimited, totally free surfing hit the UK a few months ago, but has since plagued the ISPs offering such services with network overload problems, causing several of them to pull services completely.

"There have been offers that try to go with totally free, we aren't convinced of the business model," said Poidatz.

Competitor Liberty Surf, backed by Europ@web, already took the public market plunge. The subscription-free ISP went public in March, attaining a high of 75.2 euros, before plunging to a low of 27.6 euros in May. The shares were trading around 31 euros today.

Free doesn't plan to seek out another round of funding before its listing, but isn't closed to the idea if a strategic investor presents itself, added Poidatz. "We aren't actively looking for funds, but we aren't closed to a good opportunity either."