French telecommunications group Orange aims to launch standalone 5G networks for enterprise customers next year, local news site 01Net reported, citing Michaël Trabbia, the technology and innovation manager of the Orange Group.
The deployment of standalone 5G has so far been limited to pilots, which Orange has been carrying out with customers in Belgium (Antwerp port, BASF) and in France (Le Havre smart port city project, Schneider Electric).
The executive said that these 5G networks will allow network slicing, which will enable the provision of different services to enterprise customers depending their specific needs.
“For example, we can improve the performance of a factory with augmented reality maintenance and remote work. Very often, this work requires the appeal to experts who are scarce resources, located elsewhere in the company,” said Trabbia. “Artificial intelligence will come to detect faults on a production line and assisted vehicles in factories will bring equipment to risky industrial sites,” he added.
In March, Orange said that it was already making 5G technology available to companies operating in the port area of Le Havre. Orange noted that the opening of the 5G network aims to improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of the port area, as the companies with operations in this port can now benefit from real-time data and will be able to use connected robotics, augmented reality maintenance or even make remote interventions possible.
The Le Havre private 5G network was expected to also enable numerous digital projects (including IoT, artificial intelligence, deep learning and edge computing) designed within the framework of the “smart port city” innovation territory, Orange said at the time.
According to the report, Orange also aims to launch standalone 5G networks for the general public in 2023.
Orange has already activated 5G in 160 cities across France, the operator’s CEO Stéphane Richard previously said in an interview with local newspaper Jornal du Dimanche. Some of the initial cities covered by Orange’s 5G network include Marseille, Nice, Le Mans and Angers.
Orange initially launched commercial 5G services in 15 municipalities at the beginning of December 2020.
France had a total of 25,105 5G authorized sites as of June 1, of which 14,284 were declared technically operational by the local mobile operators, according to the latest information provided by France’s spectrum agency ANFR.
ANFR said that the number of authorized 5G sites during May had increased by 3.7% compared to the previous month.
The agency said that almost all of the 5G sites have been authorized on existing cellular sites, already used by 2G, 3G or 4G technologies.
In France, mobile operators are currently providing 5G services through three frequency bands: 700 MHz, 2.1 GHz and 3.5 GHz.
