CEO Stephane Richard announces very high speed mobile launch in Marseilles
Orange has announced that Marseille will be its first pilot city for LTE, with services starting in June 2012. The company will also continue to roll out 42Mbps HSPA+, and said it has now achieved 50% population coverage for HSPA+ since it began rollout in November 2011.
Marseille will be the first pilot “4G Orange City”, with “experimental deployment” of LTE in several neighbourhoods. Other cities will follow, Orange said. Orange is testing LTE in Marseille with Alcatel-Lucent, its reference partner for LTE. Marseille was also the city that SFR chose for trials with NSN in autumn 2011.
By the end of 2012, Orange said it would have 60% population coverage for HSPA+, with the addition of cities like Bordeaux, Nancy, Metz, Strasbourg, Toulouse and Angouleme covered. HSPA+ services has until now been available only to corporate customers, but is being opened to the general public.
The operator is launching its high speed mobile capabilities to the general public under the brand H+. A new package – Let’s Go 5Go H+ – offers up to 5Gb of data on the HSPA|+ network for €59 a month. A €10 a month option – Let’s Go 1Go H+ – is also available.
An Orange release said that compatible devices for H+ include the new iPad, and the Domino H+ — an HSPA+ compatible version of its Domino MiFi product, due to be launched on 5 April.