Not surprising, but Alcatel appears to be taking the lead role at Orange France. Coot
mobileeurope.co.uk
IS ALCATEL WINNING OUT WITH ORANGE?
Those who have followed the 3G contract announcements coming out of France will note with interest Alcatel’s announcement about its role as primary service supplier to Orange for its Ville Pilotes UMTS project. (see link below)
The situation as it stood was that Orange was conducting trial 3G networks in three cities, Cannes, Lille and Toulouse. These trials were divided up between Nortel, Alcatel and Nokia, who were installing and managing the networks in each of the cities respectively.
But this announcement appears to position Alcatel as the main service supplier integrator across all three projects. The service package includes such goodies as fixed-to-mobile video telephony, web conferencing, video messaging, online gaming, a 3G video portal and instant messaging.
Alcatel appears to have sewn up the deal for the supply of application servers, service platforms, and management of service quality and performance. It is also integrating the new services into Orange’s existing service platforms.
This growing relationship is one that will not surprise those who have seen Orange France increasingly become an arm of France Telecom (FT) – a drift that many blamed for the recent departure of its ceo.
FT’s Thierry Breton said at Cannes that he saw Orange as a strategic provider of wireless broadband, alongside FT’s fixed line efforts, and that the long term goal was to harmonise broadband service delivery platforms across the fixed and mobile networks. In that scenario, Orange becomes just one access provider to a range of branded multi-media services.
If FT genuinely wants to harmonise its broadband service delivery platform it is unsurprising that Alcatel whould be given the job of doing it. But the mobile operator and its suppliers, still have a long way to go before that vision, which must be based on IP, will near reality.
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dmeurope.com
Orange picks Alcatel to supply ‘Pilot Cities’ project 3G integration
06/05/2004 by Rémi Gamba
At the opening ceremony of Orange France's "Villes Pilotes UMTS" (Pilot Cities) project in Lille, Alcatel announced that it has been selected as the exclusive supplier of Orange France with responsibility for integrating 3G services in Orange's UMTS pilot cities of Toulouse, Lille and Cannes.
In Lille, Alcatel also supplied and integrated the UMTS radio infrastructure and the circuit-switched core network solution. In addition, Alcatel will ensure the optimisation of the radio network and the ongoing operation and maintenance support for both radio and circuit-switched core.
The services package developed by Alcatel for Orange's Villes Pilotes project includes fixed-to-mobile video telephony, web conferencing, video messaging, online gaming, a 3G video portal, a TV
service package, webcam access, live sporting events and instant messaging services, with personal multimedia storage for 3G testers.
Orange has chosen Alcatel as its priority supplier for its UMTS network infrastructures in Europe. In France, Alcatel is the sole supplier for the deployment of the UMTS network that will cover the north and west of the country, Paris and the Paris region. The Orange Group has decided to step up its UMTS network deployment program in the United Kingdom and has chosen Alcatel as second supplier.
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