Orange is to launch its next generation of high-speed mobile services by September for businesses and in time for Christmas for retail consumers in an effort to boost demand for video, music and other digital content.
France Telecom's mobile arm said on May 16 it had started testing outside Paris a so-called High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network, a broadband connection up to five times faster than its current 3G service.
The testing comes less than a week after Orange's closest rival, SFR, commercially launched its own version of HSDPA for companies in several big cities in France and said it would be available to individuals as of June 1. It also allows mobile users to download large emails and surf the Internet much faster.