France will get LTE network(s) later this year, with the country’s leading mobile operator Orange announcing its 4G pilot for June, starting in the city of Marseille. The France Telecom-owned carrier has a combination of two frequencies (2.6GHz and 800MHz) for its LTE services, and will use the network infrastructure supplied by Alcatel-Lucent.
Aside from the LTE news, Orange also reminded us that at this point their HSPA+ network covers more than 50% of the population, offering theoretical peak speeds of 42Mbps. By the end of this year, the coverage will be enlarged to reach 60% of the population.
Now we don’t know what other French operators (SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Iliad/Free) are cooking, but it’s only natural they don’t want to be left behind and are working on their own LTE networks as we speak…
[Via: CellularNews]