The two companies will develop services for industries and consumers to take advantage of 5G technologies
Finnish vendor Nokia and French telecommunications group Orange have signed a partnership to collaborate on 5G, specifically developing services that will allow industries and consumers to take advantage of efficiencies and business models made possible by the as yet pre-standardized next generation network.
Under the terms of the agreement, Orange will tap Nokia’s various 5G-ready products, including but not limited to its AirScale RAN portfolio, AirFrame data center platform, and cloud and cybersecurity solutions to create applications making use of 5G’s ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability. This work will also include the application of ultra-broadband, cloud RAN and massive MIMO, IoT, network slicing, and energy efficiency.
“In line with the Orange Essentials 2020 strategy, Orange places innovation at the heart of its drive to deliver an unmatched customer experience. Working with Nokia, we are preparing the evolution of our networks from 4G to 5G, with multiple services on a single infrastructure to deliver a quality tailored for each service requirement,” said Alain Maloberti, SVP of Orange Labs Networks.
The two companies will establish joint innovation platforms at the Nokia Paris Saclay premises on the outskirts of the French capital, and at the Nokia campus in Lannion, in Western France, in collaboration with two Orange research and innovation sites, Orange Gardens in Chatillon and Orange Labs in Lannion. Nokia and Orange will open up the laboratories to work with their respective innovation partners, including local enterprises, vertical application providers and local start-ups, to accelerate the creation of an end-to-end ecosystem.
“Through this collaboration, we will test 5G applications for different industry segments and measure the benefits of extremely short latency and very high speeds. We are also delighted to be applying our world-class R&D expertise in Paris and Lannion in this project,” said Marc Rouanne, chief innovation and operating officer at Nokia.
Telefonica selects Huawei for vEPC networks in Latin America, Europe
In related news, Spanish telecoms group Telefonica has selected Chinese vendor Huawei to deploy virtual evolved packet core (vEPC) networks in 13 countries spanning Europe and Latin America.
The contract covers 11 countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay; plus two in Europe: Germany and Spain.
Telefónica and Huawei have been jointly working and testing Huawei CloudEPC performance, in Telefónica’s Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Reference Lab in Madrid.
“This large scale vEPC network deployment is a further step within the Telefonica Unica virtualization program where a smooth migration to Unica infra cloud capabilities will be reached following extensive test in Telefonica LAB,” said Javier Gavilán, planning and technology director at Telefonica, global CTO.
“These results provide the confidence needed to continue with the adoption and deployment of virtualized solutions and to enable the transformation to software-driven networking,” he said.
