Want A Cellular Phone? Get On The List
Following Monday's confusion,
the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) has cleared up how it
will handle the sale of the 10.000 cellular lines it has on hand.
Starting this Friday, all those that had placed their name on the
waiting list will be given an opportunity to connect to the cellular
network.
The rest, will just have to wait. And for how long it's anyone's guess.
ICE had announced that it would make available 5.000 GSM and 5.000
TDMA lines last Monday, as announced in the local print publications.
Many lined up in the early hours at the different ICE offices only
to be told that it had been all a mistake.
They would need to add their name to the waiting list and would be
called when the lines would be available.
According to Claudio Bermúdez, a communications manager at ICE, the
demand for cellular service increased to 16.000 names as Tuesday
afternoon.
ICE will serve the first 3.000 customers and is asking for the remaining
customers to be patient and wait until the next sale.
From time to time, ICE makes available cellular lines that were returned
to ICE for failure of payments or cancellation by subscribres.
In the past almost two years, cellular service customers got used to
being able to walk into an ICE office, with the necessary paperwork in
hand and
the deposit and obtain cellular service.
In the past three months all that changed when ICE got denied approval
of the contract it signed with the Ericsson company to install 600.000
new GSM lines, following accusations of corruption and payoffs stemming
from the last contract ICE awarded to the Alcatel company that installed
the current GSM network.
Two weeks ago, the Contraloría General de la Republica (Comptroller's
office) finally approved the Ericsson contract, but it won't be until at
least December before that service can be in operation.
In the meantime, ICE and it's customers must make the best of the
situation as the current 900.000 cellular lines - 400.000 GSM and
500.000 TDMA - are all used up.
For the who want to obtain cellular service and add their name to the
list, just simply call 193 or 115 and make the request. There is no need
to visit an ICE office.
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