Staff at Paris Olympics to Use Orange 4G PTT

Orange made a solution enabling thousands of Paris Olympics 2024 staff to talk to one another. To achieve this, the operator will use a Push-To-Talk (PTT) service, effectively turning mobile phones into walkie-talkies with messaging and video capabilities.

The company highlighted how 13,000 smartphones will be supported with the technology that runs over a priority 4G network. Bertrand Rojat, CTIO at Orange Events and Paris Olympics 2024, noted the PTT service will be prioritized over other voice traffic on the 4G network to ensure reliability. Rojat said the service will be used by event volunteers, the Olympic committee, security services, athlete teams, health, and safety workers.

Details were not revealed on who exactly Orange is working with to ensure the prioritized 4G voice network service is up to the task, but Rojat said this is the first Olympics event where a PTT service has run over an operator’s existing mobile network. Previous PTT services have relied on TETRA networks (a global narrow-band standard for mission-critical communications defined by ETSI), for example.

The concept of PTT is not new, operators launched PTT services more than 20 years ago, while earlier this year T-Mobile US teamed with Motorola to roll out a PTT service targeted at first responders, government agencies, and businesses. Orange also launched a PTT service in Europe 20 years ago called Talk Now, which allowed people within a group to use their mobile phones as a walkie-talkie by simply pushing a button to talk to others registered within a group.

The operator’s Paris Olympics 2024 PTT service is just one of the tech offerings it will use during the games. The company is the exclusive official connectivity provider for the event and is deploying a standalone private 5G network which broadcasters will be able to access in key venues during the games. Around 1,000 Orange staff are involved in preparing for the event, including program managers and technicians.