Thursday 23 October 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
President Defends
His Order For The
Open-Pit Mining Project
Calderón Trial Set
To Commence On November 3
3G Or Not 3G?
2009 Marchamo To Be 14%
More Expensive
Presidential Love??
Interamericana Sur Will Be Closed
Beginning Tomorrow
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3G Or Not 3G?
That is the question
that is being asked by
thousands of cellular
telephone customers
waiting on the state
telecom, the Instituto
Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE), as
it runs into more
problems in contracting
a bidder for the new 3G
cellular network.
The new 3G cellular
network has been
promised by the end of
next year. However, that
may only be a dream as
ICE continues to have
problems in getting a
bidder to install and
operate the new network.
The problems go back as
far as five years when
ICE first decided to
introduce the latest
generation of cellular
service to Costa Rica.
The first bid for the 3G
began last August when
only one bidder, the
Chinese company Huawei,
came in at more than
double the ICE budget of
us$225 million dollars.
All the other bidders,
LG, Nokia-Siemens and
ZTE (Samgung), backed
out the last minute.
ICE, at the suggestion
of Costa Rica's
president, Oscar Arias,
rejected the Huwaei bid,
deciding on a new bid
offering.
Notwithstanding, the
interested bidders for
the contract have yet to
make their offer, in
contrast are asking ICE
to make changes to the
bid.
ZTE, Huwaei and Nokia,
have filed objections
with the Contraloría
General de la República
(Comptroller General) of
inconsistencies with the
terms of the bid, asking
for the changes to be
made before the bid
closure date, which is
set for November 18.
One of the points of
contention by the
potential bidders is
ICE's demand that each
bidder has experienced
the installation of at
least three other 3G
networks similar to that
to be installed in Costa
Rica.
The potential bidders
feel this requirement
excessive since
installations may differ
from one another,
depending on the
peculiarities and
specifications of each
client.
In its letter to the
Contraloría, ZTE, says
that the requirement in
unreasonable. "Each 500
B node installation is
equivalent to 2 million
customers, while ICE
only requires a system
for 950.000 solutions".
A similar statement was
filed by the other
potential bidders.
Interestingly and
without any explanation,
ICE,has reduced the bid
to 950.000 lines from
the original promise of
installing 1.5 million
3G lines in the country.
The 1.5 million lines
was ICE's estimate of
lines required to retire
the 500.000 TDMA lines
and offer "prepaid" GSM
service to Costa Rica.
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The Blackberry Storm is the
latest 3G cellular phone that cannot be fully used on
Costa Rica's GSM network. |
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