Home » News » Mobile telephony. SFR launches 5G in Nice, first city covered

Mobile telephony. SFR launches 5G in Nice, first city covered

The telephony 5G in France, it’s gone. And it starts to Nice. This Friday, November 20, 2020, SFR launched its first commercial offers there. With a cover for more than 50 % of the people of Nice, Mayor Christian Estrosi (LR) can boast of get ahead, highlighting the applications offered by 5G such as telemedicine or new tourist experiences.

Mayor of Nice since 2008, Estrosi is a fan of the use of new technologies in urban space, lending himself to sometimes controversial experiments such as facial recognition and regularly attacking the National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (Cnil) .

Montpellier, Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseille and Greater Paris will be the next cities covered by 5G by the operator, said SFR, which also unveiled its commercial offers for the general public and businesses.

Only Orange and Bouygues Telecom had so far communicated their consumer offers, without announcing their coverage plan, while Free mentioned Tuesday a launch in the next weeks.

After having paid 2.789 billion euros to the State to seize “blocks” auctioned in early October, operators can enjoy their 5G frequencies since Wednesday.

However, they remain subject to administrative procedures linked to technical authorizations to be filed with the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) and to requests for information from town halls.

“Discussions” with Paris

However, several green or left-wing mayors of large cities, particularly in Lille or Grenoble, have declared themselves in favor of a moratorium until the publication, scheduled for spring 2021, of a report from the National Health Security Agency. (Handles). This is also the case in Nantes.

In the capital, the Paris council voted in early October to create a citizens’ conference on 5G, while part of the public is suspicious of the health and environmental effects of electromagnetic waves.

We are ready to cover 90% of the population in Paris in the coming days if ever we find an agreement with the city, said Grégory Rabuel, Managing Director of SFR, on BFM Business.

The mayor (PS) Anne Hidalgo decided to have a discussion board with the Parisians, to delay this departure a little. We are in discussions as with many other municipalities, he still assured.

While 5G promises to ultimately offer up to ten times faster speed, operators are counting above all on its launch to manage the increase in traffic and avoid saturation of their mobile networks.

In addition, consumers will have to equip themselves with a latest generation smartphone to be able to benefit from it, which augurs well for more real commercial development for 2021, according to analysts.

Huawei antennas authorized in Nice

In Nice, SFR will use equipment Huawei with government authorization, revealed its general manager, which constitutes a form of exception in the territory.

If France has not explicitly banned the equipment of the Chinese equipment manufacturer for the deployment of the future mobile network, the National Agency in charge of IT security (Anssi) very strongly restricted the operating licenses at the end of August, citing security reasons.

This means that it is a prejudice for SFR, and that in some cities we will have to remove Huawei infrastructure to put Nokia at our expense for the moment., lamented Grégory Rabuel.

Bouygues Telecom, the other French operator equipped with Chinese equipment manufacturer’s facilities, also explained that it would have to remove 3,000 Huawei antennas by 2028 in very dense areas and that it had a ban on it. use in Strasbourg, Brest, Toulouse and Rennes for 5G.

It is clear that for two years we have not found a way out with the government. In the United States, the United States government has forced operators not to work with Chinese operators and, as such, has compensated them, underlined Mr. Rabuel.

Thanks to a favorable decision by the Council of State on Wednesday, the two operators will be able to see their requests be examined by the Constitutional Council, while the French government indicated in early September that it was not planned that there be compensation.

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