logo
Nokia and Orange France extend long-term partnership with new 5G deal

Nokia and Orange France extend long-term partnership with new 5G deal

Press Release
Nokia and Orange France extend long-term partnership with new 5G deal
New 5G contract extends companies' long-standing partnership with upgraded network boosting performance and customer experience.
Nokia's energy-efficiency AirScale equipment portfolio to support Orange France's sustainability ambitions.
Orange France to trial Nokia's Cloud RAN solutions.
Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced that it signed a four-year contract extension with Orange France to upgrade its 5G radio infrastructure with Nokia's energy-efficient AirScale portfolio. The new deal will deliver an enhanced customer experience with best-in-class speeds, capacity, and performance across Orange's footprint in Southeastern 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 industry-leading O-RAN-compliant 5G AirScale portfolio. This includes Nokia's next-generation industry-leading, 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 its energy-efficient ReefShark System-on-Chip technology and combine to provide superior 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. Nokia is helping its global customers to seamlessly transition to Cloud RAN technology with future-proof solutions that drive innovation for CSPs and enterprises. Nokia's comprehensive anyRAN approach provides the best choice of strategic options for their RAN evolution with purpose-built, hybrid, or Cloud RAN solutions, enabling customers to evolve their networks and continue to deliver maximum field performance.
Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, CTO at Orange France, commented: '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, said: 'We are excited to continue our long-standing 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.'
Resources
Product page: Nokia anyRAN
Product page: Nokia AirScale Baseband
Product page: MantaRay NM
About Nokia
At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.
As a B2B technology innovation leader, we are pioneering networks that sense, think and act by leveraging our work across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. In addition, we create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs.
With truly open architectures that seamlessly integrate into any ecosystem, our high-performance networks create new opportunities for monetization and scale. Service providers, enterprises and partners worldwide trust Nokia to deliver secure, reliable and sustainable networks today – and work with us to create the digital services and applications of the future.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service
Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service

The latest celebrity start-up trend is no longer tequila. It's telecom. Actors Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman — who host the popular 'SmartLess' podcast — are launching a wireless service as an alternative to pricier unlimited data plans from major carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. The decision to start the company, called SmartLess Mobile, came from a simple realization: while industry giants generally push unlimited plans, most people don't actually use that much data. Even if they're glued to their phones. 'Most Americans spend almost 90% of their time under Wi-Fi. Their mobile device very seldom actually uses the actual wireless network,' said SmartLess CEO Paul McAleese, a telecom industry veteran who co-founded the company with the actors. Research published last year by the consultancy group OpenSignal found that most mobile customers spend between 77% and 88% of their on-screen time connected to a Wi-Fi network. SmartLess Mobile offers wireless plans starting at $15 per month for 5 gigabytes of high-speed data, going up to $30 monthly for 30 gigabytes. By contrast, starter unlimited plans from the major carriers range from around $35 to $65 per month. McAleese said he and Arnett started discussing the idea after the actor bought a new phone for his teenage son and was sold an unlimited plan that cost around $70 monthly. (Arnett previously served as a spokesperson for Canadian telecom giant Shaw Communications; McAleese is the company's former president.) 'And (Arnett) goes, 'Geez, it's awfully expensive,'' McAleese said in an interview with CNN. 'And I said, 'Your boy spends almost his entire life under Wi-Fi. He's at home, he's at school … he's never going to be on the network. Why would you buy all that?'' SmartLess Mobile joins a growing slate of celebrity-backed wireless carriers, including Consumer Cellular, with longtime spokesperson Ted Danson, and Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile, which was acquired by T-Mobile in 2023. These providers, known as mobile virtual network operators (or MVNOs), lease access to a major telecom provider's spectrum — SmartLess plans will run on T-Mobile's 5G network — and can often charge lower prices because they don't have to manage the physical infrastructure. The services have gained popularity as cell phone technology has advanced. Most phones now have digital SIM cards, making it easier for consumers to switch carriers without having to visit a retail store. And the proliferation of Wi-Fi infrastructure everywhere from subways to restaurants means many people have lesser data needs. If their partner network goes down, MVNOs do risk being the ones customers blame for losing missing service. And limited data plans aren't necessarily for everyone — ride-share drivers and delivery couriers likely use a lot more data than people who work from home or from an office with a Wi-Fi network. But the primary 'uphill battle for any MVNO is to stand out in the space,' said Jeffrey Moore, principal at wireless industry research firm Wave7, because the industry giants have much more name recognition. Major carriers also entice customers with deals on new phones, which they practically give away for free if consumers join their network. Smaller carriers 'have to stand out either in terms of offerings or in terms of marketing,' Moore said. That's where celebrity endorsements come in. SmartLess already has a significant built-in audience; the podcast ranks among the top 20 most popular shows on Apple Podcasts. And Arnett, Hayes and the SmartLess podcast have more than 2 million combined Instagram followers. 'Whether by luck or by design, they also have a brand name that has both 'smart' and 'less' in the name,' McAleese said, 'which, if you're going to be a challenger brand in this day and age, those are two pretty good head starts.' The team plans to start discussing SmartLess Mobile on the podcast in the coming weeks, he said. And the SmartLess hosts' involvement in the new carrier goes beyond typical celebrity endorsements, McAleese said. Hayes, Arnett and Bateman had already turned down the opportunity to lend their names to other types of products, and they've been involved in everything from financing to marketing the new company. 'They rely on the category for what is now one of their primary professional pursuits, which is the podcast, this is how people consume their product,' McAleese said. 'These guys are master storytellers, and they have the brand ethos of sort of an honest broker. I think it's just a perfect marriage.' Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data

The FCC's Dangerous EchoStar Mistake
The FCC's Dangerous EchoStar Mistake

Yahoo

time8 hours ago

  • Yahoo

The FCC's Dangerous EchoStar Mistake

The complexities of telecom regulation can bewilder even seasoned professionals. Thus, a headline like 'FCC to Investigate EchoStar's 5G' may seem too boring and technical to look into. This would be a mistake: this action by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the potential to be seriously market-disruptive, and even to impair American national security. Among the major national carriers, EchoStar is a technological leader in areas most relevant to competition with China and to national priorities in trade and advanced manufacturing. That makes it a national strategic asset. As a true fourth national network, it protects consumer choice and lower consumer prices. The FCC threatens such severe sanctions that they put EchoStar's financial viability in question and threaten to kill the company. This places every holder of a spectrum license in a riskier position and will raise consumer prices by forcing every licensee, not just EchoStar, to charge higher risk premiums. Here's how we got here. On May 9th, the FCC was directed to open two proceedings on EchoStar: one on 5G buildout compliance, the other on the use of EchoStar's 2 GHz spectrum licenses. On May 10th, the FCC opened an additional proceeding into sharing 2 GHz between EchoStar's terrestrial uses and satellite services, something the FCC has repeatedly found to be impossible in prior proceedings have the cumulative effect of threatening EchoStar with numerous spectrum license revocations, which has severely affected EchoStar's ability to raise capital. EchoStar faces the heavy lift of building a capital-intensive national network, which will ultimately cost tens of billions. That makes these threats existential to the company. Every holder of a spectrum license is taking note: threatening license revocations is the ultimate sanction because without licenses, you don't have a wireless business. This sanction is very rare in the cell phone business. The last time it happened was when NextWave lost licenses for non-payment after its 1998 bankruptcy, and those revocations were overturned at the Supreme Court in 2003. EchoStar committed to build its network, and to spend the billions of dollars required to do so, as part of the U.S. Government's commitment to four national networks when T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020. EchoStar claims to have met its commitments, so moving to threaten its licenses seems extremely market-disruptive out of proportion to any claimed offense. But the concerns with these threats go farther. For years, we've heard that China is beating us in 5G. It's important to look under the hood and ask what this means in order to appreciate what's going on with EchoStar. For consumers, 5G was supposed to deliver fast streaming and new applications. But the more interesting part of 5G were always its applications to manufacturing, logistics, and public safety—all areas where China is realizing far greater gains than we are. China has about 16,000 '5G private networks' while we have less than 400. These are the networks supporting advanced Chinese factories and ports. And China has about 77% of its population on '5G Stand-Alone,' versus only about 37% in the USA—meaning that Chinese cell phone networks are more capable than ours of supporting advanced security and performance features for public safety. The conclusion is inescapable: American 5G technology needs more radios, more advanced network cores, and more capital to keep pace with China. American 5G deployments risk checking the 5G box without delivering the innovation, under the hood, that would enable 5G's promise to be realized. T-Mobile and EchoStar's Boost brand are the only American cell carriers that are 100% 5G Stand-Alone. What's more, in building its Boost network—one of only four national networks, now that US Cellular is winding down—EchoStar has built the only American OpenRAN network. OpenRAN, which offers cheaper equipment and software-based management at the expense of the tight integration that a single stack vendor can provide. The jury is out on whether OpenRAN will predominate in 5G, but it's a significant factor overseas, with Japan's Rakuten as one notable success. In industrial and public safety deployments, OpenRAN may prove more suitable to non-consumer deployments than traditional consumer-facing systems. And perhaps most significantly, OpenRAN as used by EchoStar excludes Chinese suppliers accused of threatening national security. Put it all together, and there's only one conclusion. One of the most innovative companies in American telecommunications is at risk of suffering an unprecedented and unpredictable punishment. We're all going to pay a price for it as the effects ramify through the markets, and it's going to hurt our international competitiveness. The FCC should reverse course. If not, China won't have to beat us—we'll have beaten ourselves. Nathan Simington was nominated to serve as a Commissioner of the FCC by President Donald J. Trump. He was confirmed by the United States Senate in 2020 and served in his position until June 6, 2025.

O-I, GPI decry federal funding walkback for glass decarbonization projects
O-I, GPI decry federal funding walkback for glass decarbonization projects

Yahoo

time8 hours ago

  • Yahoo

O-I, GPI decry federal funding walkback for glass decarbonization projects

This story was originally published on Packaging Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Packaging Dive newsletter. O-I Glass said Friday it is disappointed by the U.S. Department of Energy's announcement a week prior that it was terminating a more than $57 million award to the company. That money was supposed to go toward enhancements at the company's Zanesville, Ohio, glass manufacturing facility. 'The Zanesville project was designed to be a generational investment in American manufacturing, the state of Ohio, and to make our industry more competitive,' O-I Glass said in an emailed statement. 'With support from the DOE's Industrial Demonstrations Program, this pilot project aimed to integrate five proven, cutting-edge furnace technologies—waste heat recovery, gas/oxygen firing, batch and cullet pre-heating, and electric boost—into a single transformative system.' O-I said that this would have been 'the first time all five proven technologies were deployed together,' which the company said would have had energy reduction and economic benefits, and increased the use of recycled material. Specifically, the project could have added more than 300 contracting jobs and reduced emissions by 49%, also helping customers reach their scope 3 targets. O-I did not comment on the status of the project in the wake of the federal funding reversal. The company did, however, say in the statement it is 'evaluating all available options before the company due to this reversal.' 'O-I stands by the viability and potential impact of this project that was vetted and agreed upon by DOE's team of experts,' the company wrote. 'While the DOE's decision cites a shift in policy priorities and a reassessment of emissions accounting methodology, we believe the project remains aligned with the broader goals of strengthening domestic manufacturing, making American made products more competitive and sustainable.' O-I's project was one of 24 decarbonization awards on the chopping block in DOE's notice. Some others in the glass space were also affected, including Gallo Glass, which had planned to install a demonstration hybrid electric furnace at its Modesto, California, site, backed by a $75 million award. The list also extended far beyond glass; other companies affected included Exxon Mobil, Eastman, Kraft Heinz and Diageo. DOE said in its announcement that it 'found that these projects failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.' The Glass Packaging Institute railed against these cuts, what it called a 'surprising decision to abruptly terminate funding for multiple industrial decarbonization projects — including shovel-ready initiatives from U.S. glass manufacturers — while allowing projects from other material sectors, such as steel and aluminum to move forward.' 'Glass manufacturing recipients were informed that their projects did not 'effectuate current priorities' and lacked full-scope emissions modeling — despite providing shovel-ready, technologically sound, and financially responsible decarbonization strategies in support of the next generation of American manufacturing careers,' GPI said in an emailed statement. GPI said that other federal agencies have recognized the pressure domestic suppliers are under from Chinese competition. Such issues have previously prompted trade investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission. 'Glass is an often overlooked American success story, and it's unacceptable to see vetted projects that advance American manufacturing competitiveness cut,' said GPI President Scott DeFife. 'The Department should lean into glass, not ignore it." GPI called on DOE to meet with industry stakeholders 'to ensure future opportunities reflect the full range of American manufacturing.' Recommended Reading DOE cancels $57M award for O-I Glass furnace project

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store