Orange begins 5G services with roll-out in Romania

Leading communications provider Orange Group has joined the 5G party with the launch of commercial networks in the Romanian cities of Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Iasi, with other cities to follow throughout 2020 and beyond.

In addition to offering customers internet download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps and average download speeds of 600Mbps, Orange is offering a package of premium services and devices to take advantage of the capacity, throughput and latency advantages that 5G delivers.

Explaining its choice of country to kick off 5G, Orange said Romania has always been an important testbed for its innovations and latest technologies.

The launch will see the introduction of exclusive services such as a number share service, which allows users to use the same phone number on multiple devices without requiring a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection.

It will also include the first HD Voice Plus service in the country, which offers an improved quality of voice calls.

Orange Romania also contributed to Europe’s Horizon 2020 research and development projects – Matilda, SliceNet, 5G-EVE and 5G-Victori – which have led to the development and standardisation of 5G technology.

“I am delighted that Romania, one of the most dynamic telecoms markets in Europe, is the first country within our global footprint to have achieved this important milestone,” said Ramon Fernandez, the Orange CEO delegate in charge of finance, performance and Europe.

“Orange Romania is important for us, both in terms of investments and driving innovation, with more than €3.5bn invested since we entered the market,” he said.

“Today’s 5G launch, alongside new innovations like eSIM and number sharing, will serve as key use cases for further development, and underpins the group’s ambitions to deliver an unmatched experience to our customers as we begin our migration towards the next generation of networks.”