SFR currently provides 5G services in 6,200 municipalities across France
French telco SFR announced it has selected Finnish vendor Nokia for the deployment of its 5G Standalone (SA) core network, the former said in a release.
As part of its ongoing 5G deployment, SFR has signed a strategic partnership with Nokia for the supply and integration of its cloud-native 5G SA core. The 5G network core will be deployed in 2023 and will enable SFR to provide its enterprise and consumer customers with 5G advanced services.
Under the terms of the deal, Nokia will also support SFR in the deployment of a 5G private wireless network, with the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) 5G end-to-end solution. This solution will enable customers wishing to work in a closed mobile environment and will operate independently of SFR’s mobile network, according to a release.
SFR will also offer a “hybrid private network” mobile solution for customers wishing to benefit from both an isolated architecture and a virtual architecture for the needs of employees who would like to have national coverage.
“SFR has decided to reallocate the radio frequencies of its 2G and 3G networks to its 4G and 5G networks in the coming years. This operation will make it possible to provide more bandwidth and further improve responsiveness and voice quality thanks to the widespread use of VoLTE. These latest technologies are smarter and more secure and are also more efficient in terms of energy consumption,” SFR said.
“The 2G and 3G networks, launched respectively in 1991 and 2000, will therefore cease to be operated by SFR at the end of 2026 and 2028,” the telco added.
SFR initially launched its 5G commercial network in Nice in November 2020. According to the company’s website, SFR currently provides 5G services in 6,200 municipalities across France.
France had a total of 38,132 authorized 5G sites as of January 1, of which 29,315 were declared technically operational by local operators, according to the latest monthly report published by France’s spectrum agency ANFR.
The agency noted that the number of authorized 5G sites during the last month of 2022 increased by 1.5% compared to the previous month.
The agency also 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 spectrum in 700 MHz, 2.1 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands.
ANFR said that a total of 20,881 sites are authorized in the 700 MHz band (Free Mobile), of which 16,519 are already technically operational. Also, ANFR said that 16,722 sites are authorized in the 2.1 GHz band (Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR), but 10,648 are technically operational.
Meanwhile, 23,291 sites are authorized in the 3.5 GHz band (Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Orange and SFR), of which 16,228 are declared technically operational.
Free Mobile had the highest number of operational 5G sites as of the end of December, with 16,524, followed by Bouygues Telecom (9,514), SFR (8,388) and Orange (5,601).
