While 5G consumer deployments continue to sprout up around the globe, the business use cases are still a work in progress.
On that note, Ekinops has completed a successful trial of 5G business connectivity tests with Orange Business Services in its Orange Labs. With private networks and network slicing, 5G can serve up low-latency applications and services to business customers.
In addition, 5G can serve as a connectivity option when wireline services aren't available, or as a backup to wireline solutions. For IoT, 5G features more robust connectivity when compared to Wi-Fi on a factory floor, for example.
“The results of this first test within the Orange Labs are very promising. We have been able to assess in real-life conditions the ability of our router to use 5G as a primary connection for enterprises,” said Vincent Munière, Ekinops group CTO and vice president R&D, in a statement. “We are privileged to be able to work alongside our longstanding partner Orange Business Services and its innovation teams to perfect our new generation of products, including 5G and software defined networks."
In the tests with Orange Labs, Ekinops used its "5G capable" OneAccess router based on its OneOS6 software. Ekinops said the software enables a range of built-in services at a modular level for supporting network functions such as routing, firewalls, SD-WAN and session border control (SBC), among others.
“As the market expects a lot from 5G with 10 times more capacity, 10 times less latency and 10 times more density, this test provided one more opportunity to check the reality of 5G connectivity for WAN solutions," said Orange Business Services' Franck Morales, vice president of marketing and connectivity, in a statement. . “This successful outcome confirms once again the many opportunities we see with 5G for enterprises.”
Ekinops and Orange Business Services plan to have packaged solutions available to customers later this year.
RELATED: Orange Business Services tunes up new uCPE platform with Dell Technologies and Ekinops
About a year ago, Orange Business Services announced it had picked Dell Technologies and Ekinops as its partners for a new uCPE solution. The uCPE platform, which is targeted at mid-market and enterprise customers worldwide, combined middleware from Ekinops with hardware provided by Dell Technologies.