Orange Spain and Madrid City Council complete 5G Standalone network prioritization trial for emergency services

Spain's first real-world 5G Standalone (SA) network prioritization trial, completed by Orange Spain and Madrid City Council on 2026-03-13, demonstrates a critical advancement for urban public safety infrastructure. This development stage partnership, part of the European Emer5gencias project, successfully validated mission-critical communications for Madrid's Municipal Police, SAMUR, and Fire Department during periods of high commercial network congestion. The core commercial logic centers on ensuring uninterrupted, stable connectivity for essential services within Madrid, even when consumer demand is at its peak. Utilizing network slicing, the solution effectively separates critical traffic flows, delivering low latency and high reliability specifically for emergency responders in the Spanish capital. This trial establishes a blueprint for how 5G SA can move beyond consumer applications to provide guaranteed performance for life-saving services, directly addressing a fundamental challenge of network reliability in densely populated urban environments. Orange Spain, a Madrid-based major player in the Spanish digital infrastructure sector with extensive mobile and fixed networks including 5G, significantly enhances its advanced telecom solutions portfolio through this trial. For the Madrid City Council, the municipal government overseeing public services in Madrid, this project directly supports its mandate to strengthen digital resilience for smart cities and disaster response within the city. Ericsson, a multinational networking and telecommunications company, supplied its RAN and Core technologies, validating their integration and scalability for mission-critical 5G SA applications in a real-world setting. The successful completion of this trial in Madrid suggests a clear path for nationwide adoption of 5G Mission Critical Services (MCX) in Spain, potentially driving further investment in dedicated 5G SA infrastructure across other Spanish cities and regions. This development stage partnership positions Orange Spain as a frontrunner in delivering high-reliability 5G services to government entities across Spain.