Orange selected Ericsson, Nokia and Oracle Communications for the group’s 5G SA deployments in Europe
French telecommunications group Orange has selected its suppliers for the deployment of 5G Standalone (5G SA) networks in its European footprint.
The telco has selected Ericsson’s 5G SA core network for its network deployments in Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg and Poland.
Meanwhile, Orange said that Nokia’s 5G SA core network will be deployed in France and Slovakia. Nokia’s Subscriber Data Management has been also selected for deployment in all countries
Additionally, the French telco selected Oracle Communications for 5G core signaling and routing in all countries
For other network functions, in particular the radio, a software update of the existing equipment will be carried out, Orange said.
“The deployment of 5G SA solutions in Orange countries in Europe is a major milestone that will enable the future development of value-added, on-demand and customized services for Orange customers in all sectors of the economy. For Orange, 2022 is a year of preparation, testing and deployment to facilitate commercial launches from 2023. Orange is mobilizing its experts and setting up a Network Integration Factory to test and validate technical chains, the performance of end-to-end services and to conduct tests with users,” the telco said.
“5G SA brings increased performance in terms of uplink data rates for the end user and lower latency, and for businesses, it meets the need for flexible, scalable, reliable and secure connectivity for real-time uses. It will be possible to virtually slice the Orange 5G network, prioritize certain slices to cover critical uses or specific needs and offer different levels of quality and security.”
The European carrier also highlighted that 5G SA and network slicing will also allow Orange to evolve its range of mobile private network solutions. ”According to enterprise customers’ needs, a first option is to create a virtual private network on Orange’s public network. A second solution is to create a hybrid private network relying on shared equipment in the Orange network and dedicated equipment at the customer’s site for critical flows and data,” Orange said.
The technology is already available for learning, testing and innovating with interested companies at Orange 5G Lab sites, and deployable globally on demand for B2B customers with Orange Business Services’ private network solutions.
Orange initially launched commercial 5G services in 15 municipalities in France at the beginning of December 2020. The operator initially offered 5G NSA in France though frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band.
