5G advances in Spain
August 4, 2020
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Orange will start its 5G launch in September in five Spanish cities – Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla and Malaga – becoming the second Spanish telco after Vodafone to provide such services, according to Expansión.
The operator will initially focus on the centre of those cities, offering about 20 per cent coverage in the first phase. Orange plans to reach a 40 per cent penetration of the Spanish population by the end of 2021, 70 per cent in 2022, 90 per cent in 2023 and 95 per cent in 2024. Before the end of the year, new cities – Logroño and Zaragoza- – will be added to the list, and the coverage will reach 30 per cent in the first five municipalities.
Orange’s 5G network will be based on NSA, similar to Vodafone’s, using 60 MHz in the 3.6 GHz band with plans to use 100 Mhz in the near future.
Meanwhile, a consortium of eight companies led by Cellnex Telecom and MásMóvil will deploy a 5G pilot in Barcelona from September until December 2022. The project will test seven services in different fields such as education, industry, tourism, transport and commerce.
The pilot, with a budget of €5.4 million, will use the 3.5 MHz band operated by MásMóvil. Among the participant players will be Parlem Telecom, Aumenta Solutions, Atos, Nae, Lenovo and Nearby Computing. Other partners that will contribute to the pilot are the Barcelona Town Council, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Fira de Barcelona, 12Cat, Intel and IESE.