Orange France selects Nokia and Ericsson for 5G

Orange France will finally continue to work with Nokia as well as Ericsson to upgrade it network to 5G technology saying “No” to Huawei.

The two firms are both long-term partners of the operator, already offering RAN equipments for 2G/3G and 4G equipments. Nokia will remain to serve the western and south-eastern areas of the nation, while Ericsson will stay the primary vendor for the Ile-de-France, north-east as well as south-west regions.

“For Orange, the deployment of 5G represents a huge challenge and is one of the main priorities of our Engage 2025 strategic plan,” said Fabienne Dulac, CEO of Orange France. “We are delighted to be pursuing our partnerships with both Nokia and Ericsson, two key long-term partners, in order to develop a powerful and innovative 5G network. 5G will enable the development of new use-cases and new services, and will provide an enriched experience for our customers – both in the consumer and business segments. Through these agreements, Orange reaffirms its ambition to being network leader.”

Building on its existing market share and lengthy history with Orange, Nokia will offer Orange, for a wide part of France, with a series of services and products from its end-to-end 5G portfolio, consisting of Single Radio Access Network (RAN) technology, advanced automation tools, a network management solution as well as associated professional services.

Ericsson stated that the agreement, covering five years, will include RAN, maintenance and also deployment services. Job is due to begin immediately to enable Orange to launch 5G when the associated frequency bands will be available later this year.

The operator claims the infrastructure investment will permit Orange France to boost customer experience, boost network capacity, allow further automation and produce brand-new ingenious services that need ultra-high bandwidth and very low latency. The new network will certainly supply enhanced mobile broadband services in addition to allowing Orange to supply ultra-low latency applications in areas such as Industrial IoT, health, public safety and security to name a few.

Nokia will initially support Orange’s 5G commercial launch by enabling the rollout of its cutting edge SRAN network to 5G through software upgrades, as preliminary steps to develop 5G. It will certainly likewise introduce 5G New Radio (5G NR)-based AirScale hardware, and software for the 5G frequency bands.