International Roaming
Now Available On ALL GSM
Cellular Lines
Cell phone users in
Costa Rica don't have to
leave their phones at
home when travelling now
that the Instituto
Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE) is
making international
roaming available to all
its GSM cellular lines.
Until last week, only
the 400.000 subscribers
of the Alcatel network
were able to roam
internationally.
However, ICE, now allows
all of the 900.000 lines
of ther Ericsson network
to international roaming
as well.
To activate
international roaming,
customers must be
current with their bill
and visit an ICE office
and mininum deposit
us$150 to their account
that will be used to
offset international
roaming charges
incurred.
The cost of roaming is
not cheap. Each minute
calling from the US
costs between us$1.15 (SunCon) and us$1.94
(Cingular), depending on the
carrier connected to
make the international
roaming call. A
local call made with
T-Mobile costs us$0.69
per minute, while the
same call connected to
the Cingular network
costs us$0.99.
ICE publishes on its
website a complete list
of all countries the
service is available and
the rates.
Click here.
The international
roaming service will
also allow text
messaging and be
available only in
countries where ICE has
made a deal with the
local networks. Click
here here for full
country list.
With the upgrade,
international roaming is
now available to all 1.3
million GSM subscribers.
TDMA customers will
continue without the
service and will have to
wait until ICE
introduces the 3G
network expected
sometime next year, when
TDMA customers can trade
in their TDMA phones for
the 3G and keeping their
number. |
