Claro Brasil has agreed a sponsorship and technology supplier deal with Nubank Parque in Sao Paulo.
The agreement will bring commercial 5.5G and a Wi-Fi 6 network to the home stadium of Brazilian football club Palmeiras.
Droam said the infrastructure is designed to support connectivity for arena visitors, whether attending Palmeiras matches or concerts, as well as the operational needs of the management company, WTorre, and its partners.
The project involves a 5.5G network infrastructure utilizing millimeter waves, as well as a laboratory for testing new solutions, including those for corporate use.
According to the operator, Nubank Parque has already been upgraded to 5G Advanced, an evolution of the fifth-generation network also known as 5.5G, using the standalone standard.
The company had previously revealed plans to begin rolling out this technology at concert venues and sports arenas.
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras, commonly known as Palmeiras, is a Brazilian professional football club based in the city of São Paulo in the district of Perdizes. Palmeiras is one of the most popular clubs in Brazil with around 15 million fans. The football team plays in the Brasileirão Série A, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system.
Nubank Parque, also known as Arena Palmeiras or as Arena Palestra Itália, is a football stadium in Água Branca, São Paulo, Brazil, and the home of Palmeiras.
The stadium also serves as a multipurpose arena and has been built to host concerts and other events besides the football matches. The stadium has a capacity of 43,713 spectators for football and 55,000 for concerts.
The Nubank Park technology project also hosts Brazil’s first commercial millimeter-wave (mmWave) network, Claro stated. Previously, this spectrum, capable of delivering higher speeds, had only been used in trials.
To support the complex operations and mega-events centered at Nubank Parque, Claro also installed over 700 Wi-Fi access points throughout the stadium, backed by a dedicated fiber-optic network. The goal is to provide high-speed, free Wi-Fi.
Test Laboratory
Claro intends to turn the Nubank Parque technology project into a laboratory for testing 5.5G capabilities and private networks, while also paving the way for a new standard of immersive entertainment.
Claro said, “Soon, thanks to 5.5G, fans will have the power to act as their own broadcast directors, choosing to watch the game from multiple different angles directly on their smartphones. The technology also opens the door to innovations that place the viewer right in the middle of the action, such as the ‘referee cam’.
The company also envisions benefits for sports broadcasting. It said, “The ultra-high capacity of 5.5G will allow TV broadcasters to use cameras connected directly to the mobile network, operating with extremely low latency and completely wirelessly, ensuring agile coverage, a more dynamic aesthetic, and unprecedented mobility for real-time broadcasts.”
Another possibility being introduced is reserving connection quality on demand for a specific event, operation, or client—guaranteeing performance even in a packed arena—through features such as network slicing and Open Gateway APIs.
Adriano Rosa, Executive Director of Claro Empresas, said, “The project was designed to provide a connectivity solution that redefines the management of large arenas and boosts business, catering to diverse user profiles,”
“The challenge at Nubank Parque is immense: there is demand from the venue’s management itself, but also from partners and micro-entrepreneurs. […] We ensure, for example, that card terminals and operating systems function with minimal latency, directly impacting financial results and the smoothness of service on days when the stadium is packed.”
Long-standing relationship
The relationship between Claro and the arena (whose naming rights were recently acquired by Nubank) has involved joint initiatives since 2019, when the stadium became the first in Brazil to be 5G-ready.
Deepening the partnership also reinforces the operator’s strategy of connecting with the cultural and technological scene in São Paulo, a priority market for the company.
“Being at Nubank Parque means being at the heart of our customers’ most memorable moments in São Paulo. Our technology is here to amplify that energy,” stated Márcio Carvalho, Claro’s Marketing Director.
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