About fiber optic internet, and the future of broadband

Once upon a time, 2016, Digicel had asked GOA for a license to bring fiber optic internet, the future of broadband, into homes in Aruba.

Two court decisions later, and the Mincom has not made a decision yet.

Only this time he has until November 7th, 2019, which is practically tomorrow. He must get off the pot, and decide, is he, or isn’t he going to give us a responsible alternative, one that will usher us into the 5G era, or will he continue to favor a Setar holy-cow monopoly.

Once upon a time, fifteen years ago, following a long five-year period of litigation Digicel entered the cellular market here. Prices, dropped, service improved, we had choices, we learned about new products.

Competition is good.

You should all email the minister that you insist on opening the market, enough with indecision, indecision about Aruparking, indecision about the urgently-needed ATV/UTV regulations, indecision about RH vs LH drive, the minister reportedly continues to travel and leave crucial decisions on hold.

Back in 2016, when Digicel volunteered to lay down a backbone network, digging and/or hanging fiber optics, it was a 50million project. But due to a slowmo decision making processes, it should be much costlier right now.

And you should know something about communication.

When it fails, our life as we know it is over. Hospital, airport, banks, kaput.

Wouldn’t you like to have a plan B? A second communication provider.

Most importantly. When you talk about innovation. It is guaranteed NOT to come if you can only offer low-speed broadband.

With high-speed, 100 times faster, the juices start flowing, and sexy, crazy, much-needed ideas start crystalising to finally give Aruba an alternative source of income.

Everything depends on that advanced technology: The internet of things, the promise of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people, able to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

And there is no turning back, so don’t tell me you don’t want it, or don’t need it.

Once upon a time, what ushered in the new age were 4 submarine cables, 3 installed in 1999, one in 2004, they guaranteed 20 years of up-to-date communications between North American and the Caribbean. The system will have to be replaced in the near future, with fiber optics instead of the copper network.

Think about it, as long as Setar is making money hand-over-fist by forcing us to lump cable, telephone and cell plans, and overcharging us, they will NOT be motivated to innovate because they are already very liquid!

My total Setar bill is over Awg 500 each month, and I watch TV and see the same thing is available in the USA, for a family of four, for $69, across many devices.

If Mincom remains indecisive, there will a daily penalty, in the thousands, for that.

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October 22, 2019
Rona Coster