Costa Rican state utility/telecoms firm Grupo ICE has announced that its Radiografica Costarricense (RACSA) unit will launch 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) services in February 2024. The network will go live in the Greater Metropolitan Area, which is the largest urban agglomeration in the country, before being extended throughout the seven provinces. Mauricio Barrantes, general manager of RACSA, commented: ‘We will offer disruptive and innovative services that provide high value to all productive sectors, with ultra-fast connectivity and a high social, economic and environmental impact.’

As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, in June this year Grupo ICE selected Finnish vendor Nokia to deploy a 5G FWA network for RACSA. The latter company, which has previously been accused of under-utilising its 5G-suitable spectrum, currently holds a 100MHz block of 3.5GHz spectrum.