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ICE Makes
Sutel Payment Under Protest
After several days of humming and hawing and
some prodding, the Instituto Costarricense
de Electricidad (ICE), finally paid its fees
owed to the Superintendencia de
Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL), avoiding a
temporary closing of Sutel's doors for lack
of funding.
Sutel is the newly created
telecommunications regulator that is funded
by fees paid by telecom operators in the
country.
After ending a 60 year monopoly last year,
ICE continues to be the only operators
providing fixed line and cellular service,
internet and other telecommunications
services, while the Sutel reviews
applications for new telecoms interested in
setting up shop in Costa Rica.
ICE, on Friday, finally haded over ¢463
million colones (us$812.000) in fees for the
last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of
2009.
The Contraloría General de la República
(Comptroller's office), on two separate
occasions, ratified ICE's obligations to pay
the fees.
"The payment was made and we now funding to
move forward", said George Miley, presidnet
of the Sutel, confirming the ICE payment
that was made at 3pm.
For his part, Pedro Pablod Quirós, president
of the state telecom, said the payment was
made but in protest and total disagreement
because the Sutel has not kept up its end of
the bargain.
The next payment to be made by ICE is in
July, when payments of fee change to monthly
from quarterly.
As expected, yesterday the Sutel handed over
a report to the Ministerio del Ambiente,
Energía y Telecomunicaciones (MINAET) on the
use and assignation of radio frequencies in
the country. The report will be used to
assign radio frequency licenses to new
telecom operators. |
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