Voice-over-LTE trial to initially involve 5,000 subscribers
French operator Bouygues Telecom launched a pilot voice-over-LTE service, the company said in a statement; the move makes the telco the first operator in France to offer VoLTE to users.
The carrier said the VoLTE trial involves 5,000 subscribers, including 700 corporate customers. The subscribers participating in the trial are using Samsung Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge mobile phones.
The company also announced that VoLTE technology will be commercially available to eligible customers in 2016.
In May, the French telco selected Swedish telecom equipment provider Ericsson to upgrade its 4G network infrastructure to support VoLTE technology.
Rival operator Numericable-SFR is in the process of deploying a commercial VoLTE service in the country, according to data from GSA.
Bouygues Telecom ended the third quarter with 4.6 million LTE subscribers, representing 46% of the mobile base, excluding machine-to-machine connections, compared with 26% at the end of Q3 last year.
In a recent presentation during the company’s capital markets day, Bouygues Telecom said its LTE network currently covers 72% of the French population. The company also said due to network sharing in “non-dense” areas, LTE coverage was set to reach 99% of the population by 2018 via an extension of the network from 15,000 to 20,000 base stations.
Orange France to launch IoT in 17 cities in Q1 2016
In other EMEA news, French telecom operator Orange announced plans to deploy its “Internet of Things” network based on “long range” technology in 17 cities in the first quarter of 2016.
The telco said its IoT services will be available in Angers, Avignon, Bordeaux, Douai and Lens, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Rennes, Rouen, Toulon, Toulouse and Strasbourg.
Also, Orange France and Ericsson announced a trial IoT over GSM and LTE networks. The companies said the world-first extended coverage GSM trial will be conducted in France using the 900 MHz band, with the aim to enhance device reachability by up to 20 decibels or a seven-fold improvement in the range of low-rate applications.
“IoT is a key area in Orange’s Essentials2020 strategic plan, and France should play a key role in IoT takeoff in Europe. In order to extend our connectivity offer, we are currently deploying a LoRa network,” Orange Labs Networks’ SVP Alain Maloberti said. “At the same time, we are preparing the future of cellular networks and we are happy to collaborate with Ericsson to be the first operator to demonstrate IoT over GSM and LTE in order to roll it out ahead of ‘5G’ availability in the market.”