Famous for its sweeping blonde beaches and glorious weather, Aruba regularly tops the list of holiday destinations for people looking to disconnect for a few weeks. Sadly for them, but in a move likely to be welcomed by everyone else on Aruba, Nokia and SETAR – the island’s main communications provider – have just announced a new deal to upgrade the country's network infrastructure to enable 5G across the island within the next two years.
“SETAR has been a trusted partner for years and this new investment is an important step in delivering real 5G to the island,” said Osvaldo Di Campli, Head of Latin America for Nokia. “Choosing Nokia as the main vendor for this network means SETAR will benefit from an overall improvement in roll-out time, cost of ownership and flexibility in the deployment.”
End-to-end deal
“Through our partnership to bring 5G to the island, we will ensure that Aruba has the highest quality of services and maintains itself as a desirable place to live for our 110,000 residents and a top destination for 2 million tourists a year.”
Roland Croes, MD at SETAR.
This end-to-end deal with Nokia will upgrade SETAR’s network to support more capacity while managing network resources more efficiently, and by using features such as carrier aggregation to enable three-four times higher downlink speeds.
“Nokia has been a long-term partner in SETAR’s modernization program, delivering on our plans to bring Aruba a world-class communications network,” said Roland Croes, Managing Director of SETAR. “Through our partnership to bring 5G to the island, we will ensure that Aruba has the highest quality of services and maintains itself as a desirable place to live for our 110,000 residents and a top destination for 2 million tourists a year.”
Gambling and tourism
The upgrade to 5G will be undertaken using Nokia massive MIMO technology with 64 antennas to enable new 5G uses cases like Fixed Wireless Access, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Tourism 4.0 and Smart Cities.
Aruba may not seem like the obvious choice for a 5G rollout, but – similar to other Carribean countries such as Antigua and Curacao – on and offline gambling is legal in the Dutch Carribean, and up-to-date telecoms infrastructure is vital in maintaining a competitive advantage, and in providing customers with the best experience. Add tourism into the mix, and it’s easy to see why Aruba is pushing ahead with this island-wide network upgrade.
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