ICE Will Make Available
To General Public On
Monday Reserved Cellular
Lines Not Connected
At risk of sounding like
a broken record, the
Instituto Costarricense
de Electricidad (ICE) -
state monopoly on
telecommunications - is
warning those who have a
reserved GSM line
waiting for them to
connect before the
8:00pm closing on Sunday
or risk losing their
reservations, as the
institution will make
the lines available to
the general public.
ICE estimates some 30%
or 92.507 of the 300.000
GSM lines it introduced
last December are still
up for grabs and come
Monday morning at
opening, the lines not
connected the night
before, will be
available on a first
come basis at anyu
agency or authorized ICE
retailer.
According to Elberth
Durán, spokesperson for
ICE, 132.368 or 64% of
all activated lines were
done at ICE agencies,
while 75.125 or 36% were
done at retailers
authorized by ICE.
To avoid congestion, ICE
assigned 10.000
connections per day
based on reservations.
Potential customers were
notified when their line
would be available and
would have up to one
month to activate. Those
who do not by Sunday
night will have lost
their reservation.
However, in reality the
close off date for the
majority of customers
will be on Saturday when
ICE agencies close for
the weekend. Those with
reservations can still
be activated at ICE
authorized retailers
that are open on
Sundays, like in the
malls and shopping
centres, for example.
However, most authorized
retailers demand that
you purchase the
equipment from them
before they will
activate the line.
Once all the 92.507
lines are gone, which is
expected within 10 days,
ICE will no longer have
any new lines available
for some time.
Durán said that the
institution is expecting
to have some 200.000 GSM
lines available in a few
months, but that there
is no definite date for
the launch, while it
will be sometime in 2009
when the third
generation cellular
lines known as 3G, may
be in place as ICE
continues forward with
the bid and installation
process now that the
financing for the
project got the green
light earlier this week.
The third generation of
cellular lines allow
Multi Media Messaging
(MMS) that can transfer
videos and photos as
well as text and a
television signal over
the cellular network
between phones equipped
with those functions. |
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