This generation’s Standalone performer
Creatives and consumers in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville will be the first Spanish citizens to enjoy the outstanding feats of mobile service available from 5G+ coverage, thanks to Orange Spain. These are the first of their kind in Spain and over the course of 2023 other cities will be added, said the operator. In these major metropolises, coverage of the new service will be at least 90% and as the technology and people get to know each other, there will be the hope that this seemingly misunderstood mobile technology begins to find its feet. Like any expensive addition to a team, it takes time for the fans and the players to get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Realtime Madrid
The fans, AKA the customers, will not be charged any more for the use of the 5G+ service, promised Orange in a release. Customers will need a compatible handset and Orange is initially launching 5G+ with the Samsung S22, Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12T, S22+, S22 Ultra and Xioami 12 Pro series. Other models are to follow in the coming months. The rollout of its 5G+ network not only makes Orange the first operator in Spain to offer this technology but the Spanish division the first in the Orange Group to adopt 5G SA. It is also one of the few European mobile operators to commercially launch this standalone, purist’s version of 5G.
Broadband Barca
The technology exists outside of the ‘handbrake’ effect of its 4G/LTE roots, which enables it to produce outstanding indoor 5G coverage, thanks to its use of native 5G bands. This is a service for technology purists who operate at the edge, in the spheres of online gaming, live video streaming and bitcoin trading. It’s impossible to survive in these time sensitive environments without the instant response times and minimal latency that only 5G + can offer. Other desirable (but possibly less urgent) benefits are the longer battery life of handsets, since signalling and other network functions make more efficient use of energy.
Velocity Valencia
More devices can be attached to a 5G+ service, which caters for 1 million connections per square kilometre, a hundred times the capacity of existing technologies. “Our 5G+ network incorporates more advanced security mechanisms, such as IMSI encryption (SUCI),” said an Orange release. Orange has worked with Ericsson, Nokia and Oracle Communications as its core network providers in 5G Stand Alone (SA).
Standalone Seville
By 2030, 5G technology will use a twentieth of the power needed today to transmit a Gigabyte of information. In the future, consumers and networks will work out how to use network slicing as they redesign every human activity from port logistics to precision agriculture, using education to reform health to shopping to tourism. Orange has invested a total of €531 million in the acquisition of 5G frequencies in all bands throughout the various auctions in which it has participated, from 2016 to the most recent one in December 2022. It has the most spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, the priority band for information trafficking, which speeds data at 1.5 Gbps.