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During this meeting, the debate mainly focused on 5G and its deployment in Morocco. On this aspect, the Orange group made it clear that the equipment is theresome of which need to be upgraded, and which now only remains that the deployment modalities to be fixed. Being one of the requirements of the specifications of the Global 2030which Morocco will organize with Spain and Portugal, the operator anticipates that everything will be in place for the operationalization of this technology by then.
5G: “Discussions with the regulator are at an advanced stage”
In this area, the operator already has the necessary know-how and expertise that it has developed on a European scale. The first, according to Christel Heydemann, general director of the Orange group, “is that we know design, engineer and use frequency bands in some countries. The first use of 5G, particularly in Morocco, will allow us tosell even more traffic for our customers, thanks to 5G frequency bands”.
“This will be the first result, and this is also how we started in France and in many other European countries, because the networks are currently saturated by the data traffic of our customers who consume always more. And the first challenge for us is to use the spectrum as best as possible, and to design our networks as best as possible to be able to carry the maximum amount of traffic.
“In Morocco, today we are at an advanced stage discussions with the regulator”, she adds. “I would also tend to agree with the fact that the 4G is not fully optimized in Morocco”, and that it is therefore still a little early to move to 5G, “but you should know that the 5G frequency bands are today essential to continue allowing Moroccans to consume the network and to have traffic in an area like Casablanca, where there are many inhabitants.”
“For the deployment of 5G, we will simply have to upgrade existing 4G mobile sites”
“If it did not exist, the citizens of the metropolis would be really limited. And I can also tell you that, whether in France or Spain for example, we first deployed 5G as a traffic reservoir in more than 4G, because we can use 5G frequency bands for customers who have a 4G phone and who use 4G. This is a priority, and I think. that there is consensus on thisin any case between all operators in the Kingdom, and we should be able to convince the regulator.”
Regarding the preparations for 5G, Christel Heydemann underlines that today, “in Morocco, we have 4G. We have sites, and we do not need a neutral operator. The challenge , it is above all to have affordable terminals, because one of the reasons why, in Europe and the United States, 5G took a long time to deploy is that the first terminals cost up to 1.300 euroswhich largely restricted the field of deployment.
“So this meant that the ability to penetrate the market was very low. In Morocco, we are ready. There is certainly work that remains to be done, but there is no infrastructure issuesince we already have our mobile sites. It will simply be to upgrade existing 4G mobile sites, which will require considerable investments. For us, 5G is therefore really a challenge to continue to improve the quality of the network for our customers“, she adds, noting that “the Kingdom is also the country which requires the most investment from us, because traffic is high there”.
“We will do everything we can to offer 5G for the 2030 World Cup”
The other issue raised by the group’s general director is “the need to have suitable terminals. We will thus be able to use 5G to do what we call fixed wireless access, who is wireless fiber thanks to a 5G modem. It’s something that the group has only just launched in certain European countries, and that the Americans have launched for a very long time. The latter had also launched, from the start, 5G to make wireless fiber.
The operator also plans to be ready for the World Cup, especially since 5G is one of the requirements of the specifications of the FIFA for this global event.
“The first step will be to have the frequencies”, specifies the Orange manager. “This is important for major sporting events. Orange was also the first partner of Olympic Games this summer. We used private 5G to capture with cameras installed on the boats, since we could not have wire in all areas. We were also partners of the African Cup of Nations in Abidjan in Ivory Coast in January. We therefore have this know-how of major sporting events and their connectivity, and therefore of course thatwe will do everything we can to offer 5G for the 2030 World Cup“, part of which will take place in Morocco.
Regarding the terms of allocation, Christel Heydemann explains that this is generally carried out by technical batches. “In Paris for example, we were all alone. But generally, these are technical lots and calls for tenders, and it turns out that Orange is one of the operators with the greatest capacity to respond to them” .
“As for the 2030 World Cup, it will take place both in Morocco and in Spain. Being also present in Spain, we are also discussing with the Spanish teams. It is a major project, because it’s about bringing the best images and guaranteeing the best experience, particularly for spectators in the stadiums but, above all, for viewers around the world. There is also everything related to capturing images and. to visual arbitration, but the organizers of Football World Cups know all these issues, and are used to launching calls for tenders, and we, as an operator, are used to responding to them “.
“5G will bring us additional capacity”
“For this global event, there will also be support for spectators. Visitors who come to Morocco must have the best connectivity, which passes through existing networks, on which connectivity will need to be strengthenedas was the case for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. To prepare for this, we are used to anticipating in our profession. We know the traffic on the networks, and there are teams specialized in this aspect. If we have frequency shortages, this represents T0 for us. It is therefore refarming [réaffectation du spectre, ndlr] frequency with which it will be necessary to proceed, which is measured in weeks or months, but not in years, and we still have time ahead of us between now and 2030.”
“Once again,” insists Christel Heydemann, “this is something that we are used to doing and that we have already done for 4G. From this point of view, 5G is not very different from 4G. And it turns out that the group has already invested enormously in the modernization of its network, specifies for its part Henry CastleCEO of Orange Maroc, who underlines “the specificity of Morocco in terms of the level of mobile data consumption per customer which is much higher”, in comparison to other countries.
“This consumption is higher than in the Africa and Middle East zone, because prices remain low, and there are many users who use IPTV. This means that the level of growth in internet traffic is exponential in Morocco. We therefore need additional capacity, and that’s what 5G is going to bring in the first place.”
“Optical fiber is the most advanced and sustainable technology in terms of speed”
Regarding the evolution of the deployment of optical fiber, the Orange group specifies that “at a global level, it has been proven that it is the most advanced and sustainable technology when it comes to throughput. There is still capacity to upgrade it if we make the right network designs, which obviously at Orange we are now used to doing, having made the choice to start deploying fiber more ten years.”
“We are today the operator who has deployed the most fiber in Europe. Orange has deployed more fiber than the sum of what has been deployed by Deutsche Telecom, Telecom Italia, British Telecom and Vodafone,” says Hendrik Kasteel.
“However, each country has its specificities, hence the importance to have local know-how. These are civil engineering issues, permitting issues, and geographic targeting issues. You also have to know how to carry out the plans at the right speed, since there are also regulatory issues,” underlines the group’s general director.
“In Africa and the Middle East, fiber began to be deployed early. The same is true in Morocco, which started very early on this technology. Orange Morocco also contributed to this deployment, with a level of “significant investment”.
“I believe that nearly 2.8 million equivalent housing units are already connectable,” estimates, for his part, Jérôme Hénique, CEO of Orange OMEA. “Morocco remains the leading fiber country in the region, in terms of the number of fiber housing equivalents and the number of lines.”
The Kingdom also plans, by royal decision, to reach 4.6 million fiber homes in 2026, and nearly 5.8 million homes in 2030.
The voice is maintained, almost 900,000 customers only at Orange Maroc
Voice is the other activity of the Orange group. If we tend to believe that it is decreasing, the group specifies that it continues to maintain itself, with traffic that increases by 25% per year on its networks for a very long time. “On a encore 900.000 clients who are making voice in Morocco only with the operator Orange”, specifies the CEO of Orange OMEA. “We must therefore not underestimate it”.
Christel Heydemann says, for her part, “sometimes happy to have the voice as a backup too. Moreover, in certain countries, particularly in Europe, we are trying to decommission 2G, but it turns out to be very complicated , because we always underestimate the traffic that remains on this activity Sometimes it is sensitive systems, business systems, resilience systems, connectivity of objects and elevators…”
“It is therefore an eternal race to always anticipate, invest in networks and always be ready before the traffic arrives. In Africa, the turnover of traditional voice is still growing because we still have lots of deployment extensions to rural or ultra-rural areas. This is obviously not the case in Morocco, where our Orange network already covers the entire population.”
“In the next phase we will have voice over data, and we will subsequently arrive at artificial intelligence with voice chatbots. At that point, we will find another form of voice which will recreate traffic and on which customer experience expectations will be similar to what we have for voice, with very low latency requirements. This is the next wave of technology that we are going to see arrive in the networks. Certainly, it is not for 2025, but it will come,” concludes the group’s general director.
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