For Orange France, the event's sole partner, the Olympic Games “were an event of unprecedented magnitude”

Jean-François Fallacher, directeur d'Orange France. L'opérateur a mobilisé, dès début mai, un millier de collaborateurs à plein temps pour les Jeux Olympiques Paris 2024, dont il était le partenaire télécoms unique et exclusif.

Executive Director of the telecoms operator Orange France, Jean-François Fallacher takes stock of the experience of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, for which the operator was the sole and exclusive partner.

The curtain has fallen on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In addition to a memorable sporting moment, Orange France also had a major experience. The telecoms operator was, in fact, the sole and exclusive partner of the event. Which imposed a need for success, with both technical and organizational challenges to overcome.

"Being a partner of such an event is first and foremost a source of pride, insists Jean-François Fallacher, its executive director for France. I remind you that in Tokyo, there were five partner operators, and three in London. And that's unique to be the only partner”. To meet the challenge, the operator mobilized full-time “a thousand employees”, including 14 from the Montpellier regional management.

Equipping the 120 sites with infrastructure

Indeed, specialized in wifi, the Montpellier team had been tasked for several years, in view of the sporting event, to “work upstream on the wifi architectures of quite special places so that we could have exceptional coverage on each of the sites of these Olympic Games”. One of the particularities of these Paris Olympic Games is the diversity of the sites.

“We were on 120 sites, most of which were not places that, like stadiums, already have suitable infrastructure, observes the director of Orange France. We were responsible for all connectivity, both fixed and mobile. We fibered and cabled all the sites, whether for journalists, photographers, etc. Many sites were ephemeral, especially in Paris".

A full-scale laboratory "that we have prepared"

The operator, who has prepared "for 5 years"its mission for the sporting event, has strengthened mobile and fixed coverage, "by implementing in particular the new 5G stand-alone technology, the most technologically advanced, which allowed video cameras, organizers, and all security to have a secure, mobile, private network, with technology intended for walkie-talkies on the smartphone".

In short, it is almost a real life-size laboratory that allowed the Orange France teams "to show their know-how". “It is nevertheless a laboratory that we had prepared, qualifies Jean-François Fallacher.But this led us to make major investments, such as installing fiber optics on both banks of the Seine or on bridges, where, as a general rule, there is not always enough power.

Unprecedented traffic records

The opening ceremony, with the “more than 60,000 people who had gathered on the Seine, between the François Mitterrand Library and the Trocadéro”, was one of the most important moments. “We set up 12 additional temporary mobile antennas to handle our Orange customers' traffic that evening”.

But also, on certain evenings, to facilitate the achievement of traffic records. “Until then, traffic records were observed during major football-related events. During the Paris Olympics, we had them for Léo Marchand's two swimming finals or for the team judo final, with Teddy Riner's last fight. This showed that we were on an event of unprecedented magnitude.

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