ICE Announces 300.000
New GSM Lines For
December
The Instituto
Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE) -
state telecom -
announced yesterday that
it will have 300.000 GSM
lines available for
December, in time for
the Christmas shopping
season.
Elbert Durán, an ICE
spokesperson, said that
the lines are to meet
the current demand for
cellular service,
admitting that it may
not be enough as the
demand continues to
increase.
With the new lines,
Costa Rica will count
with 2.1 cellular
telephone lines - 1.7
million GSM and 400.000
TDMA, which will faced
out next year when the
1.5 million of the 3G
lines are expected to be
available.
For the doubters, Durán
is hopeful that the 3G
service will be in place
by the end of 2009
notwithstanding that the
institution cancelled
the results of the first
bid earlier this year
when the only bidder,
China's Huawei
Technologies, came in at
more than double the
estimated budget by ICE.
Durán said that he does
not know if the Chinese
will be bidding again in
a process that concludes
on November 8.
The introduction of the
3G lines are not only to
bring to Costa Rica the
latest cellular
technology but also to
eliminate the older TDMA
technology an provide
"pre-paid" cellular
service, a service that
is available in most
countries, but not in
Costa Rica.
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