If a few weeks ago Vodafone announced the activation of 5G in the 700 MHz band, today it is the turn of the French Orange. The company has just announced that, assure, is the “largest 5G network deployment plan in the 700 MHz band in Spain”.
According to the operator, the objective is bring the 5G network to more than 1,100 municipalities throughout this year. Something interesting is that Orange is not going to focus only on large cities, but rather intends to deploy the network in, among other places that we will detail later, 140 towns with fewer than a thousand inhabitants.
An ambitious deployment
Orange is the operator that has the most spectrum in the priority frequencies for 5G. the french operator got 2×10 MHz on the 700 MHz band and 110 MHZ on the 3.5 GHz band, which represents a total investment of 523 million euros. They are followed by Telefónica and Vodafone, respectively.
The 700 MHz band is essential in the deployment of 5G thanks to its range and greater penetration indoors
By buying spectrum, Orange made a commitment to offer 5G in all populations of 50,000 inhabitants in 2025, though that doesn’t mean they have to wait until then to do so. Like Vodafone, Orange is going to start rolling out the 5G network from now on and its plan is as follows.
Orange is going to deploy the 5G network in more than 1,100 municipalities. 140 municipalities have more than 50,000 inhabitants, 820 municipalities are towns with between 1,000 and 50,000 inhabitants and 140 municipalities (distributed in 30 provinces) have less than 1,000 inhabitants. With this, says Orange, they intend to “reduce the territorial digital divide in Spain”.
The company has given some examples. In the Madrid’s communityFor example, Móstoles, Parla, Pinto, Alcalá de Henares, Fuenlabrada, Torrejón de Ardoz, Leganés, Alcobendas, San Lorenzo del Escorial, Colmenar Viejo, Collado Villalba and Soto del Real will be connected. In total, about 200 municipalities.
In CataloniaFor its part, more than 160 towns will be connected, including Castelldefels, Manresa, Mataró, Sabadell, Hospitalet de Llobregat and Terrasa. Between the towns with less than 1,000 inhabitants there are Labajos in Segovia, Villoruebo in Burgos, Martinamor in Salamanca, Cirueña in La Rioja, Carboneros in Jaén or La Puebla de Valdivia in Palencia.
www.xataka.com