This week, French mobile operator Free, owned by Iliad Group, announced the nationwide launch of 5G Standalone (SA) services. This makes Free the first to deploy 5G SA across France, activating it at 6,950 of its 20,000 sites. Experience higher speeds, reduced latency, and innovative applications, all at no extra cost.
In a futuristic leap, French telecom giant Orange, in partnership with IT leader Capgemini, has launched commercial operations of ‘Bleu’, a sophisticated cloud platform tailored specifically for the French clientele. This solution, engineered jointly with Microsoft, promises enhanced user access to Microsoft 365 and Azure services. Christel Heydemann, Orange’s new CEO, envisions the project addressing data protection challenges, even as it adheres to French authority standards.
Orange, a French multinational telecommunications corporation, has extended its 5G test program in the 26 GHz band. This initiative was launched in 2019 to focus on testing the capabilities of frequencies for industrial use cases in France. A consortium consisting of Orange, Nokia, the railway company SNCF and the academic facility Institut Mines – Telecom (MIT), has been given a grant from the French government to trial 4.0 industrial applications over 5G using the 26 GHz spectrum. The grant will allow the consortium to develop an existing pilot that Orange performed for eighteen months at the Rennes train station in France, while working with the French state-owned railway company SNCF and Nokia. As part of the project, Orange will provide network services and Nokia will provide technological connectivity offerings, including private networks, while MIT will focus on data hosting using edge computing. This project puts emphasis on…
The French telecommunications provider Iliad, that provides fixed and mobile telephony services, prepaid phone cards, Internet access and hosting services, has signed a new $356 million loan deal with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help the Iliad Group finance its mobile network deployment in France, in particular to consolidate its 4G network and deploy its 5G network. Since 2009, the EIB has financed Iliad, and with this new loan the total financing exceeds $1.3 billion. Having helped finance the development of the Iliad fixed network for more than a decade, the EIB is once again working with the group to provide financial support for the company’s latest generation of mobile networks. There was little information on what exactly the latest loan would be used for, but Iliad said it is devoted to providing digital coverage to the whole of France, including most rural areas. Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President…
The National Data Protection Commission (CNIL), France’s data protection office, has imposed a fine of €50 million against Google LLC for breaching the European Union online data privacy rules. This is the first major case where a fine is being imposed under the EU’s stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force last year. The French watchdog found the US search engine giant guilty of “lack of transparency, inadequate information, and lack of valid consent regarding ad personalisation.” This case stems from concerns that were raised over Google’s applied methods of collecting data, and the lack of clear options provided for the users to consent to personalised ads. “The general structure of the information chosen by the company does not enable [it] to comply with the Regulation,” read a CNIL statement. “Essential information, such as the data processing purposes, the data storage periods or the categories…
