New Cellular Lines Will
Be Available For
Christmas, ICE Says
For those looking to
offer a cellular
telephone, with a line,
for Christmas, the
Instituto Costarricense
de Electricidad (ICE),
is playing Santa Claus
by promising 300.000 new
GSM lines before
Christmas.
The state monopoly on
telecommunications had
announced earlier this
year that the new lines,
an expantion of the
Ericsson network, would
be available at the
beginning of December,
then by mid December and
then by mid January, but
now is back tracking
saying December again,
but without a specific
date.
ICE says that in
addition to the lines,
it will be offering
better service, with
more radio bases for
better coverage and more
tool.
Promotions for cellular
phones like iPhone,
manufactured by Apple
and selling like the
proverbial hotcakes in
the United States, has
awakened a need in Costa
Ricans for more services
from the cellular
network and cell phone
distributors are
responding to the call.
The iPhone is available
in Costa Rica, though at
almost twice the price
being sold in the US and
with limitations since
the SIM chip used in
Costa Rica is not
compatible with the AT&T
chip, works fine once it
is unlocked. Sellers are
charging an additional
cost to the base price
to unlock the phone.
Nokia, Motorola, Sony
Ericsson are some of the
other phones to include
wi-fi - full wireless
internet access - and
not restricted to the
slow service provided
through GPRS, as well as
cameras, agendas and a
host of features all
available in the latest
generation of cellular
phones.
The iPhone, for example,
offers a tactile screen
and no physical keyboard
or buttons to press. In
addition, the iPhone
includes the Safari, an
Apple browser, YouTube
and iPod features. The
quality of the 2
megapixels camera is as
good compared to digital
of the same pixel ratio.
(A number of photos
displayed on Inside
Costa Rica were taken
with the iPhone camera).
ICE plans to introduce
the latest cellular
technology known as 3G
sometime in 2009 as it
adds 1.5 million more
cellular lines to the
existing network of 1.8
million lines by the end
of December. |
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