Creating indoor coverage on le subway
Infrastructure specialist Totem is to use a mobile indoor Distributed Antenna System (DAS) network to broadcast signals to the entire 15 Sud line of the Grand Paris Express subway by 2025. It will then operate the network until at least 2035.
The network will give passengers 5G access from every point of their journey between the future Pont de Sèvres (92) and Noisy-Champs (93) stations. As a result, the 15 Sud line will be one of the first Paris subway lines to have end-to-end 5G connectivity. Connecting all 16 stations over 33 km to 5G involves 40,000 hours of work. Totem will build a DAS network with 1,000 active antennae placed along the entire 15 Sud line, along with other supporting equipment.
This is particularly hard in tunnels, where it is crucial to minimise the size of kit and make it coexist with other comms systems. Totem has invented ways to limit equipment size in stations and tunnels, while minimising energy consumption.
According to Orange, the Société du Grand Paris (SGP) chose the Orange Group, via its former subsidiary Totem, to connect the future 15 Sud line. Totem is now an independent and will provide all the investment necessary to create the infrastructure. It will then commercialise the network to mobile telephone operators on the same terms and, it says, with ‘complete transparency’. They may be independent but the delineation is not clear.
Totem, though independent, is Orange’s European TowerCo subsidiary that wants to be market leader in Europe. Operating in France and Spain as of November 1, 2021, it manages 26,000 tower sites, flat roofs and other sites in the two countries.
This agreement sees Totem staking its claim to be a major player in indoor connectivity in France, according to Thierry Papin, MD of Totem France. “It’s a remarkable collective effort, coming to fruition only seven months after Totem was created,” said Papin.
In a statement Orange has described Totem as ‘a trusted partner’ that can now offer shared access to its mobile sites, provides connectivity to the most difficult locations, such as subways, stadiums, offices and malls, thereby contributing to local economic development.
As the tower division of Orange, which has the biggest infrastructure of all the French mobile operators, Totem was omnipresent across France. Now, as an independent, it aims to extend its connectivity offer across France and in indoor environments, said Totem Group CEO Nicolas Roy.
“Indoor connectivity is a priority not just for companies and real estate actors, but also for the entertainment and transport sectors,” said Roy, “Totem supports its customers from end-to-end, proposing the most suitable connectivity solutions and positioning itself as the essential actor for deploying 5G in the most complex locations.”