France Telecom-Orange tells EU it will have rolled out LTE technology across its markets by 2015 but says “a great deal” must still be done
France Telecom-Orange has pledged to roll out LTE services in all of its European Union markets including the UK by 2015 its CEO Stéphane Richard (pictured) has said.
Speaking to the European Commission in Brussels today (March 21) Richard told EU commissioner for digital affairs Neelie Kroes the plan would support digital business in the region.
He also said he supported the EU’s pledge to make more spectrum available to operators over the coming years.
“Orange will roll out LTE networks in all Orange European Union markets by 2015,” a statement released by the company on behalf of Richard said.
“We welcome the EU decision to make more spectrum available, in a timely and harmonised manner, to wireless services in the EU, and look forward to further, similar initiatives to help us cope with the massive growth in public data use.
“Europe could do a great deal to promote a more favourable environment for the rollout of radio access networks.”
As well as pledging its wide roll out of LTE, France Telecom-Orange also said it wanted to increase the adoption of NFC technology and cloud computing.
It called on the EU to encourage more people to use NFC technology saying it expected to supply three million NFC devices in 2012 increasing this to 10 million across Europe by next year.
The company also said it would offer companies in the European Union “high quality” and “secure” access to the cloud from data centres across Europe ensuring customers retained full ownership of files at all time.