PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the Orange Business Summit, which has brought together more than 1,000 enterprise-customers of Orange Business Services, Stéphane Richard, the Orange Group’s Chairman & CEO, presented Orange’s ambition and commitment to work with businesses to develop future uses of 5G. The event took place in the presence of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Secretary of State to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, and Philippe Varin, President of France Industrie, who respectively underlined the challenges that 5G will represent for the competitiveness of France’s economy and its industry.
“5G will not be just another new development in mobile uses. This is a technological leap that announces a significant transformation of business models for all companies and in all sectors of activity. To take advantage of the opportunities available, companies must anticipate their application cases without delay, and we, operators, must be fully mobilized to support them and develop solutions that meet their needs. The story of 5G has to be written together. More broadly, we must make every effort to make France one of the leading countries in the development of 5G. This future network is an opportunity to unite and consolidate all our resources, our know-how, our advanced industries, our French Tech and our talents at the service of our country,” said Stéphane Richard, Chairman & CEO of the Orange Group.
This approach based on anticipation and support was illustrated through the announcement of several joint innovation projects with companies that are market leaders in key sectors of the economy, such as the manufacturing industry, energy or transport, and that have an eye on the future.
Building the electronic factory of the future with the LACROIX Group
The
hi-tech manufacturer and SME with an international reach, LACROIX
Group, and Orange are entering into a joint innovation partnership
to explore how 5G can be used within “Symbiose”, the ground-breaking
prototype factory project from the LACROIX Group. In this way, the
manufacturer is positioning itself at the cutting edge of technology by
carrying out trials on uses of 5G in partnership with Orange. These
trials will involve setting up an indoor network to test ambient
connectivity on the industrial site or optimising production using
automated vehicles and other vehicles connected through 5G.
Testing 5G opportunities at the heart of industrial processes with
Schneider Electric
Schneider
Electric, a leader in the digital transformation of energy
management and automated processes, and Orange are working together to
evaluate the feasibility of opportunities brought by 5G in industrial
production processes. From the end of 2019, an initial test will assess
the value of 5G for real-time augmented reality solutions used by
maintenance technicians at the Schneider Electric factory in Vaudreuil
(Eure).
Developing co-operation between intelligent vehicles with Renault
Renault,
Orange and Ericsson
are announcing their ambition to work together on connected vehicles and
5G. This cooperation project will aim to measure the capacity of 5G to
enrich communications between vehicles and their environment, i.e. other
vehicles, highway infrastructure such as traffic lights, or road users
for example. By providing vehicles with more information about what is
around them, mobile networks will contribute to keeping traffic moving
and improving road safety. Performance tests are planned on a system
based on a hybrid V2X (vehicle to anything) architecture, including
network slicing (a feature of 5G that assigns a slice of network to a
specific use) and Mobile Edge Computing technologies to improve cloud
performance.
Imagining new in-station services with SNCF
Orange is
working in partnership with SNCF
and Nokia
within the framework of a 5G experiment to provide a high-speed, HD
video download service for passengers at the Rennes train station.
Orange will launch the service in 2020 once the French regulator Arcep
has delivered the requisite authorization. Once operational, passengers
travelling through the station will be able to connect to the 5G access
point deployed there. They will be able to download videos to their
mobile or tablet in a few seconds, enabling them to watch the film
during their train journey. The experimental network will use
frequencies in the 26 GHz band. The aim is to assess the benefits of the
5G network and to collect feedback from passengers who have taken part
in the test. At a later stage, additional services will also be tested
locally, either for the general public or for businesses, as part of
this experiment.
Also in the mobility sector, RATP (the public transport operator in Paris) and Orange will launch, for the first time in France, a 5G experiment for autonomous and connected public transport vehicles in the Paris region during 2019. This experiment is being carried out within the framework of the joint innovation agreement between the two companies.
In parallel to developments carried out in partnership with other companies, the Orange Group will continue to implement its 5G deployment strategy. 5G connections will be installed in 17 towns and cities in Europe in 2019, ready for commercial release in 2020.
About Orange
Orange is one of the world’s leading
telecommunications operators with sales of €41 billion in 2018 and has
151,000 employees worldwide at 31 December 2018, including 92,000
employees in France. The Group has a total customer base of more than
264 million customers at 31 December 2018, including 204 million mobile
customers and 20 million fixed broadband customers worldwide. The Group
is present in 27 countries. Orange is also a leading provider of global
IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the
Orange Business Services brand. In March 2015, the Group presented its
new strategic plan Essentials2020, which places customers’ experience at
the heart of its strategy with the aim of allowing them to benefit fully
from the digital universe and the power of its new generation networks.
Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York
Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).
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