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Semana Santa Begins
►
Pacheco Thanks Costa Ricans for Their Support
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10.000 Cellular Lines To Go On
Sale Next Monday
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Two Faces of Erlyn Hurtado, Dead
Brothers Lying in Morgue
Unclaimed
10.000 Cellular Lines To Go On Sale Next Monday
Looking to purchase a cellular telephone
line? The wait is shorter than thought.
On Monday March 28, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE)
will make available 10.000 cellular lines - 5.000 GSM and 5.000 TDMA -
to those who are willing to stand in line for hours.
These are lines that customers have lost for non-payment of their bills
or have decided to cancel their cellular service. They are not new
lines, they are just a recycling of the existing network.
It was announced last week that ICE would only sell their to customers
who put their name on a waiting list, to avoid the long lines of the
past several occasions.
Those interested in cellular service will need to bring along ¢12.500
colones (us$26.75) for the deposit, a copy of their "cedula" and a copy
of the the receipt for the purchase of the telephone that will be
connected to the service.
Foreigners who don't have a "cedula" cannot acquire cellular service. A
passport will not do. And
having a friend buy the service is not recommended as cellular service
is not transferable. There have been reports in the past where
foreigners have paid hundreds of dollars - some as high as us$1.500
dollars - to acquire cellular service only to have it cut in months of
acquisition. Complaints will fall of deaf ICE ears.
The lines to be offered on Monday are not part of the 600.000 cellular
lines that will be provided by the Ericsson company after it got it's
approval two weeks ago from the Contraloría General de la Republica
(comptroller's office).
ICE had requested approval for the Ericsson contract but it was stalled
due to allegations of corruption and irregularities with the contract,
that led to the discovery of corruption with the Alcatel contract that
provided the 400.000 lines for the current GSM network.
The Ericsson contract is worth us$130 million dollars and is expected to
be in place by December of this year.
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