Orange Business has outlined the importance of 5G for providing improved connectivity at sporting events.
The carrier operates a 5G lab at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, France, which was also the first sports ground connected to 5G in France.
Last week, the company demonstrated to the media its private 5G labs at the ground.
The 5G lab aims to deliver a more immersive experience for match-goers, while a private 5G network at the stadium, which can accommodate 67,000 people, also enables workers on the ground to communicate over devices without interference.
“I think this is one of the great use cases because you have a very high density which was not the case with 4G,” Laurent Godicheau (far left in image), chief strategy, partner & sustainability officer, Orange Business, told DCD.
“So I think the stadium use case is a great example of the usefulness of 5G.”
Godicheau also acknowledged the role that 5G Standalone (5G SA) will play for the carrier, noting that it will be able to utilize even more use cases, in particular its ability to make the most of network slicing.
On the topic of 6G, however, Godicheau said that Orange Business’ customers have not shown any interest in this yet when asked at the event.
“I don’t think 6G will come as quickly as 5G came after 4G. I think, in any case, there were a lot of investments made in 5G that are not completely profitable yet. So I think the focus of everybody is to maximize the value they can get out of 5G,” he said.
“If your technology is not enabling very specific new use cases, what can you do with 6G that you will not be able to do with 5G? So, as much as we have struggled to find many use cases for 5G, the playing field for 6G is quite narrow. Let’s leverage 5G as much as we can to cover all the use cases and then once it’s kind of exhausted, we can consider 6G.”
During the event, Orange also detailed how it has been able to improve its energy efficiency at the stadium.
The carrier explained that it has paired with Cisco to improve energy efficiencies in its WiFi at the ground through its “smart power delivery” solution, which can utilize power on the 1,100 Wi-Fi access points around the ground using Power over Ethernet (PoE) based on real usage.
Because of this, Orange said it has been able to reduce WiFi energy consumption at the stadium by 52 percent.
Read more about DCD’s visit to Orange’s 5G lab in Marseille in next month’s Edge supplement.
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