Orange Polska plans to introduce 5G mobile services on 1st July.
Branded as #hello5G, the service will be available to around six million people at launch across cities including Katowice, Krakow, Lodz and Warsaw. Orange has deployed 1600 5G base stations across Poland.
At launch, the network will be delivered via the 2100MHz frequency band. Orange intends to use 3.5GHz spectrum for its 5G network in the future, but the scheduled auction of this band was delayed due to the current pandemic. The government intends to sell this frequency at auction before the end of 2020.
Orange is not the first operator in Poland to launch 5G, with Plus (Polkomtel) beating it to the punch last month with the country’s first commercial launch. Rival operator Play (P4) as deployed 2100MHz 5G infrastructure across 53 Polish towns, but is still phasing in commercial services.
In terms of subscriber numbers, Orange is Poland’s market leading operator with a 28% share and 13.7 million active customers, as of end-March 2020.