Country Could be Without Pay Phones by Month's End
In a few weeks, 74% of the public telephones may stop working if the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) does not make arrangements to buy or lease them, according to the Consorcio Celsa SA-Telepsa ESP Sadimmsa, the company that owns the 15.000 public telephones installed in the country.

According to Celsa, the contract called for ICE to make it known by the end of May it's intention with the telephones. This has not  happened.

The contract calls for ICE to purchase the telephones for a price of us$3 million dollars. Another us$4 million dollars will be required for maintenance, which the Celsa says ICE does not have in it's budget.

Claudio Bermúdez, a director at ICE, however says that ICE does have the resources to purchase the public telephones and has made it known to the company. Without giving any details, Bermúdez says there is plenty of time to complete the deal.

For his part, Pablo Cob, executive president of ICE, says that the institution has the money pay for the telephones and the company knows full well that it ICE will be buying them. "Never will we leave the public without public telephones, in fact we are going to increase the number of units, and are currently in discussion with the company about their incompletion of some of the aspects of the contract", added Cob.

Celsa says that ICE officials at the Logística UEN-TP, the unit that is responsible for public telephones, have told them a different story and the country is in danger of being virtually left without most of it's public telephones.

Officials at Celsa added that in the event that ICE doesn't make arrangements to buy or renews the lease on the telephones, it would continue to operate them, though it would have to remove about 50% of the units, particularly the units that use the "smart cards", leaving some remote communities completely without public telephones.

In 1998 Celsa SA-Telepsa ESP Sadimmsa was awarded by ICE the contract that leased 15.000 public telephones to be installed in all parts of the country, that included the smart cards and the installation of the booths, along with the maintenance and upkeep of the units.

The contract called for ICE to determine the location of the public telephones and would inspect the units, which called for a fine if the company did not live up to it's end.

The contract was for a period of seven years which ICE would then have the option to buy the units or renew the lease.