Back in July Orange secured two 10MHz allocations of spectrum in the 700MHz band following an auction by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. The band is suited to ultra-low latency services and will allow the implementation of massive IoT.
Now Orange has said that over the course of this year it will progressively roll out services in more than 1,100 towns and cities, 820 of them having between 1,000 and 50,000 citizens.
Likewise, 140 towns in 30 provinces, with less than 1,000 citizens, will also benefit from the new mobile network. The company will also deploy this technology in 140 cities with more than 50,000 citizens.
The company, which named its new CEO on Friday, did not comment in the release. However, the press announcement read: "Thinking about a future with autonomous vehicles, it’s key for a ubiquitous network with low latency like this one to be achieved with 700MHz frequency band. In the short term, it will serve to complement 3.5GHz frequency band already deployed, mainly improving the upstream data service (information sent from the user to the network) of 5G users."
Orange is credited with running the fastest 5G network in Spain and in September it switched on its first 700 MHz 5G node at the facilities of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, to provide service to the use cases that the company is working on in the Valencian Community in the framework of 5G National Plan.
It said the 700 MHz band is "essential to obtain the greatest advantages of a 5G network" and that its superior range offers particularly good indoor capacity.
Locations
Today's announcement covers dozens of locations across the country, including around 30 towns and cities in the Community of Madrid, specifically: Móstoles, Parla, Pinto, Alcalá de Henares, Fuenlabrada, Torrejón de Ardoz, Leganés and Alcobendas.
Orange will also deploy 700 MHz 5G nodes in the mountain area of Madrid such as San Lorenzo del Escorial, Colmenar Viejo, Collado Villalba and Soto del Real.
In Catalonia, more than 160 towns and cities will also enjoy these deployments; Castelldefels, Manresa, Mataró, Sabadell, Hospitalet de Llobregat y Terrasa among them. Smaller towns will also be able to take advantage of 5G technology on 700 MHz band.
It means almost 200 cities and towns in Madrid and Catalonia will have 700MHz 5G.
Ion the rural connectivity front, Orange will deploy its 5G network on the 700 MHz band in about 960 towns and cities with less than 50,000 citizens; 140 of them, located in 30 provinces, with less than 1,000 citizens.
These locations include towns such as Labajos in Segovia, Villoruebo in Burgos, Martinamor in Salamanca, Cirueña in La Rioja, Carboneros in Jaén or La Puebla de Valdivia in Palencia, and others.
"The new 5G technology has the ability to promote development of the rural areas, facilitating, for example, the work on farms. Recently, within the framework of 5G National Plan, Orange together with Agroamb, Ericsson and Qampo presented a use case based on the installation of sensors connected via 5G IoT in croplands. Together with the use of satellite maps, this allows obtain timely information on the state of the cultivated fields and improve its performance," Orange said in its press announcement.
