O2 said that its 5G SA service is now available in the cities of Avila, Barcelona, Castellon, Ferrol, Gran Canaria, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Segovia, Seville and Vigo
Spanish company O2, which is a brand of local telecom operator Movistar, launched 5G Standalone (5G SA) services, local press reported.
The telco said that the 5G SA service is currently available in the cities of Avila, Barcelona, Castellon, Ferrol, Gran Canaria, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Segovia, Seville and Vigo. The company aims to expand the services to other Spanish cities in the future.
O2 customers have access to 5G services since December 2022.
The operator’s clients will be able to connect to the 5G SA network automatically, without having to request it.
Spanish operator Movistar, which is part of telecom group Telefonica, had launched 5G SA coverage in Spain in July 2023.
Movistar initially covered a total of 11 cities with 5G SA technology: Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Seville, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Ávila, Segovia, Castellón, El Ferrol and Vigo. The carrier said it expected to have extensive 5G SA coverage in most cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants by the end of last year.
Movistar’s 5G SA network, whose core was provided by Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia, operates in the 3.5 GHz band and guarantees browsing speeds of up to 1,600 Mbps. This deployment is complemented by the coverage that telco offers in the 700 MHz band and with which it reaches more than 2,200 municipalities across Spain. The use of both spectrum bands allows Movistar to offer 5G coverage to 85% of the population.
In May 2023, rival operator Orange said it had activated its 5G SA network. As of the end of last year, Orange’s 5G SA network reached 32 cities across the country. Orange’s 5G SA network was initially launched in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and Seville. It currently reaches other important cities such as Alicante, Castellon, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife, Valladolid and Zaragoza.
Orange also noted that it had a total of 32 devices certified to be used on the telco’s 5G SA network as of the end of 2023.
Ericsson, Nokia and Oracle Communications are the main providers of Orange’s 5G SA network.
Last year, Orange Spain said it had successfully tested a data connection using Open RAN equipment and a cloud-native Standalone 5G core network, a combination the carrier said introduces the ability to activate networks in less than an hour and delivers flexibility for traffic management and energy consumption optimization.
The trial was supported by vendors HPE, Casa Systems, Mavenir and Dell Technologies and used Orange’s experimental cloud-native SA 5G core network called Pikeo.
