Racsa Without Additional Bandwidth For New Customers
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) is well known for its shortage of cellular telephone lines as it cannot keep up with the demand.

Now, its subsidiary, Radiográfica Costarricense S.A. (Racsa), will begin earning the same reputation as it cannot provide internet connection to new customers.

Racsa said it will have to stop taking on new customers in the coming days after it received notice by ICE that it will not be given space on the Fibre Optic system that connects Costa Rica to the outside world.

The iCE decision impedes Racsa from signing on new customers to connect to the internet by cable modem or dial up and the introduction of the expansion of  its wireless internet knownas WiMax. The ICE decision, however, will not affect Racsa's existing customers.

Costa Rica is connected to the world by way of the Maya and Arcos cables which by way of Fibre Optic cables provides the movement of information throughout the country.

The Fibre Optic network is owned by ICE, who is reneging on a promise to provide Racsa the necessary bandwidth.

Racsa has known this since the beginning of May. ICE's manager of Redes y Sistemas, Iván Flores, said he sent a letter explaining the situation to Racsa's general manager  on May 8.

Racsa currently has 27.000 customers connected to the internet by way of cable modem, 7.000 business customers and 46.000 dial up customers.

Pablo Ureña, a Racsa director, said that the situation not only will hurt the image of the ICE subsidiary but that of the country as news spreads that the company does not have the resources to provide internet service.

"For a company, the capacity of the technology platform is a determining factor to invest in the country", said Ureña.

So far Cable Tica and Amnet, who provide internet service by way of cable modem, said that they have yet to receive notice from Racsa on the situation.

Both companies did confirm that for almost three months they have to suspend the signing on new customers in Puntarenas and Guanacaste because the bandwidth in those areas is completely saturated.

Ureña added that Racsa is looking at alternatives in preparing a contingency plan that could include sending internet traffic through Nicaragua and possibly restricting some applications that consume a lot of bandwidth.

And finally, Racsa will be urging ICE to make emergency purchases under the process of exceptions.

ICE, for its part, proposed to give Racsa one its 16 STM-1 connections that the company had requested, which proposal is under technical study.

ICE says that the problem will be resolved once it completes its "Frontera a Frontera" (border to border) Fibre Optic project for 2008.