Orange announces the 5G network deployment plan on the 700 MHz frequency band in Spain. The company will offer this technology progressively in the course of 2022 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 this new mobile network, helping to reduce the digital divide. The company will deploy this technology in 140 cities with more than 50,000 citizens.
The 700 MHz frequency band is essential to obtain the greatest advantages of a 5G network, to boost the economic recovery through the digital transformation of the society and the productivity of the country. In addition, this frequency band is essential to reduce the territorial digital divide in Spain.
Nearly 200 cities and towns in Madrid and Catalonia with 5G 700MHz
Thanks to this deployment, about thirty towns and cities in the Community of Madrid, for example, will be able to enjoy the high download speed and capacity, lower latency to play online and the possibility of connecting simultaneously more devices to the mobile network, as well from indoors, with the maximum bandwidth availability.
This plan includes, among others, Mostoles, Parla, Pinto, Alcala de Henares, Fuenlabrada, Torrejon de Ardoz, Leganes and Alcobendas. Orange will also deploy 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, making teleworking possible for the inhabitants of these cities.
In Catalonia, more than 160 towns and cities will also enjoy these deployments; Castelldefels, Manresa, Mataro, Sabadell, Hospitalet de Llobregat y Terrasa among them. Smaller towns will also be able to take advantage of 5G technology on 700 MHz band.
New development possibilities in the rural area
On the other hand, and to democratise access to the advanced mobile networks, thus contributing to reduce the digital divide, Orange will deploy its 5G network on 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.
Towns such as Labajos in Segovia, Villoruebo in Burgos, Martinamor in Salamanca, Ciruena in La Rioja, Carboneros in Jaen or La Puebla de Valdivia in Palencia are just some examples.
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.
Firm commitment to the most advanced mobile network
Orange’s announcement of this deployment on 700MHz frequency band represents another important milestone in the development of this new technology and its objective of accelerating its availability all around Spanish geography.
In September 2021, Orange switched on its first 700 MHz 5G node at the facilities of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in order to provide service to the use cases that the company is working on in the Valencian Community in the framework of 5G National Plan.
The 700MHz frequency band is essential to offer 5G coverage in 100% Spanish territory, due to the greater range offered by low frequencies and their greater indoor capacity. This band will enable ultra-low latency services and allow the implementation of mIoT (massive IoT, massive machine-to-machine communications).
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.
In the last spectrum auction, Orange (which offers the fastest 5G network in Spain according to a study carried out by Systemics-PAB), obtained 2x10MHz in the 700MHz frequency band, consolidating its position as the operator with the largest amount of spectrum in the two priority bands for 5G technology, since Orange also has 110 MHz in the 3.5 GHz frequency band. The company has invested a total of €523 million in the acquisition of this spectrum frequencies.
According to the latest financial figures presented by the company, at 30 September 2021, Orange 5G coverage already reaches more than half of the Spanish people and already has 620,000 5G customers.