Orange Group has selected Ericsson to support its deployment of 5G network slices across Europe.

The French telco has chosen the vendor to automate the creation of advanced 5G services for enterprises and subscribers across its European affiliates.

5G network slicing enables carriers to create separate and isolated networks within their wider 5G network, and each slice can be configured differently.

For network slicing to work, a 5G Standalone network (5G SA) is essential. In this instance, Ericsson is providing Orange with its Service Orchestration and Assurance service.

The vendor notes that this will help Orange to streamline, automate, and accelerate the deployment of 5G Standalone (5G SA) services.

"This partnership with Ericsson is an important step in our journey towards cloud native and demand-centric, autonomous networks,” said Laurent Leboucher, group chief technology officer at Orange.

“Ericsson’s service orchestration solution will run above our horizontal Orange telco cloud infrastructure and will enable our 5G networks to deliver differentiated experience to our business and retail customers.”

According to Ericsson, its Service Orchestration and Assurance service simplifies the creation and replication of new 5G and network slicing use cases such as mobile private network, CellLock, or Geofencing service for the enterprise market, or Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) service for the consumer market.

Orange has already onboarded the product on its telco cloud infrastructure based on Sylva, an open-source telco cloud platform.

Orange has deployed 5G SA across a number of its markets in Europe, including France, Spain, Belgium, and Romania.