Nokia to upgrade 5G infrastructure for Orange France

Nokia has signed a four-year contract extension with Orange France to upgrade the latter’s 5G radio infrastructure with Nokia’s energy-efficient AirScale portfolio. The new deal is set to deliver an enhanced customer experience with best-in-class speeds, capacity and performance across Orange’s footprint in south-eastern and western France. Orange will also trial Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN solutions to assess the transition of its network towards Cloud RAN technology.

Under the deal, Nokia will supply equipment from its O-RAN-compliant 5G AirScale portfolio. This includes Nokia’s next-generation, high-capacity AirScale baseband solutions; lightweight and high-output massive MIMO Habrok radios; and Nokia’s Pandion portfolio of FDD multiband remote radio heads to cover all use cases and deployment scenarios. These are all powered by the company’s energy-efficient ReefShark system-on-chip technology, and should provide good coverage and capacity. Nokia will also supply its AI-powered radio network management solution, MantaRay NM, which supports all radio and mobile core technologies.

Orange will also trial Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN solutions. The latter’s anyRAN approach provides a choice of strategic options for RAN evolution with purpose-built, hybrid or Cloud RAN solutions, enabling customers to evolve their networks and deliver maximum field performance.

Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, CTO at Orange France, stated: “This new contract extension with Nokia and their industry-leading equipment portfolio will support our pioneering efforts to drive superior customer experience further, reduce our environmental footprint, and make our network as energy efficient as possible.”

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, added: “We are excited to continue our longstanding partnership with Orange France and contribute positively towards their network performance, sustainability goals and commitment to net carbon neutrality. Our industry-leading, energy-efficient AirScale portfolio and AI-powered MantaRay network management solution will enhance Orange’s network performance and deliver premium connectivity experiences to Orange customers.”

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