Orange is a multinational telecommunications company and mobile network operator servicing France. The company was founded in 1988 as France Télécom S.A., formerly known as the direction générale des Télécommunications, a state-run division of the French Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. The company was mostly privatised in 1990, with the French government maintaining a significant shareholding (approx. 27%). France Télécom was floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in April 1996, and later on Euronext and New York Stock Exchanges. France Télécom began the mammoth effort to rebrand and unite all of its business operations under the Orange brand in June 2006, completing in 2013.

Orange extends its network to the overseas departments of Mayotte and Reunion using its existing ARCEP licence conditions.

Alias
Orange S.A.
Country
France
Type
Mobile Network Operator
Ownership
Orange Group
Orange logo

3G Network

The company provided 2G GSM services over the 900 and 1800 MHz bands, and in September 2006 launched 3G UMTS over the B1 (2100 MHz) band. The network modernised to DC-HSPA+ in April 2012, and a B8 (900 MHz) service added in 2013.

Shutoff for 2G services was scheduled for end-of-year 2025, and 3G services for end-of-year 2028.

Network Frequency Band Status
B1 (2100 MHz)
Active
B8 (900 MHz)
Active
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 3G Network
Launch

4G Network

Orange (then France Télécom) began a 4G LTE pilot in June 2012, with a full commercial launch taking place late 2012 / early 2013. The network began on B7 (2600 MHz) and B20 (800 MHz) bands, and despite trials with 3500 MHz LTE added a B3 (1800 MHz) service in May 2016. The network was upgraded to LTE-A with 2C aggregation in October 2014 and adding 3C aggregation with its B3 network activation.

While the company secured 700 MHz spectrum back in Arcep's November 2015 auction, B28 (700 MHz) deployments only began in April 2016 (Ile-de-France), with full rollout possible from between October 2017 and June 2019. B1 (2100 MHz) LTE began in September 2017.

3C network performance was substantially improved with the implementation of LTE-A Pro, with Orange using 4X4 MIMO and 256QAM to deliver peak data rates of 680 Mbps in July 2017.

Orange began trialling a range of IoT technologies as early as February 2016 when it tested EC-GSM-IoT in partnership with Ericsson. Early / mid 2016 Orange made the determination to deploy a LoRa network over the EU868 ISM band, icing its initial plans to deploy NB-IoT. The company also spoke of its intentions to implement a second IoT network using LTE-M (eMTC), and began trials in mid 2017 with a target of a 2018 deployment. Orange France's LTE-M network was officially activated in November 2018 over its B20 carrier.

4G Frequency Bands
Network Frequency Band Max. Channel Bandwidth Status Known EARFCNs
B1 (2100 MHz)
15
Active
524
B3 (1800 MHz)
20
Active
1300
B7 (2600 MHz)
20
Active
3000
B20 (800 MHz)
10
Active
6400
B28 (700 MHz)
10
Active
9310
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 4G Network
Launch

5G Network

Orange launched its 5G network in December 2020 using a combination of n78 (3500 MHz) and n1 (2100 MHz) (DSS with its LTE service).

Network Frequency Band Max. Channel Bandwidth Status
n1 (2100 MHz)
15
Active
n78 (3500 MHz)
90
Active
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 5G Network
Launch