Orange and ZTE have signed a partnership to cooperate in 5G. Companies will work together on 5G and related use cases, in order to foster 5G innovation.   

ZTE and Orange plan to test and assess several key 5G enabling technologies, such as: Standalone architecture thanks to a multi-sites trial network located in Europe in H2 2018; New 5G core network (New Generation Core Network) that will enable some of the 5G most advanced promises (e.g. high flexibility and cloud-native compatibility)

Companies also plan to validate End- to- end network slicing, one of the key promises of 5G, and “5G overlay” architectures, enabling to deploy 5G with very limited impact on the underlying 2G/3G/4G network.

According to Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, Senior Vice President Orange Labs Networks at Orange, preparing 5G network deployment is key for Orange. The operator is collaborating with ZTE on new generation core network & 5G standalone architecture in order to minimize the impact on legacy network and demonstrate the full promise of 5G such as enabling very low latencies and network slicing for its customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa.