Orange Announced Commercial Start of its 5G Network

Orange Announced Commercial Start of its 5G Network
Orange

Orange has unveiled details of the launch of its domestic 5G service. In the first wave, 15 municipalities will receive access from 3 December.

Orange chosen to initially launch in areas that are heavily used to avoid risk of saturation, and it would expand its coverage to more than 160 municipalities by the end of the year. The operator laid out tariff plans and early adopter deals in October, shortly after the country’s 5G auction was completed.

Orange emerged as the biggest winner from the process, obtaining the largest share of frequency blocks available with 90MHz. Its deployment will be on 3.5GHz frequencies, which it said would bring speeds three- to four-times faster than 4G. Despite being the country’s market leader, Orange’s 5G launch follows rival SFR, which upgraded to 5G last week, but only in the city of Nice.

Bouygues Telecom will also beat Orange to the punch, with plans to launch its service on 1 December, although it is yet to provide details of its rollout. Orange, however, will clearly have the biggest 5G reach of the three by the end of 2020.