13 Feb Orange Begins 3 New 5G Trials Across Europe

by Sarah Pereau | 13 Feb 2018

Orange, a multinational French telecommunications company, recently announced they are conducting three new 5G trials across Europe.

In France, Orange has partnered with Ericsson to begin testing “end to end” 5G in Lille and Douai. Orange states that they hope to deliver up to 10 Gbps for both consumer and business customers. Multi-gigabit performance will create “the possibility for companies to deploy a wireless local area network (WLAN), and to respond to a consumption of multimedia content that continues to grow.”¹

In Spain, Orange and Ericsson ran 5G trials just outside of Ericsson’s downtown Madrid headquarters. These tests were designed to “simulate customer experience at street level.” Orange and Ericsson were granted temporary permission by the Spanish government for the 5G trials. Speeds of 12 Gbps and 17 Gbps were reached at street level. Orange also stated that “latency was reduced to less than 1 millisecond, compared to the 20 milliseconds for 4G.”

In Romania, Orange announced they would be partnering with Samsung Electronics and Cisco to test a 5G millimeter wave trial later in 2018. In a press release, Cisco states that the “companies will demonstrate how 5G can complement existing fiber deployments to deliver high-quality, high-speed bandwidth services.” The trial in Romania will make Orange the first service provider in Europe to deliver a 5G fixed-wireless trial to customers. Samsung will be providing 5G home routers, while Cisco delivers a “5G virtual packet core.” Yvette Kanouf, senior vice president and general manager, Service and Business, Cisco, says that Cisco’s partnership with “Samsung and Orange on this project spotlights how new scaling models and innovative virtualization solutions can deliver on the promise of 5G for an always-on, connected society.”

Orange is currently the leader in 4G technology in Europe and hopes to roll out 5G starting in 2020.

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1 https://www.planet-sansfil.com/orange-installe-5g-de-bout-bout-a-lille-douai/