|
2006 Telephone Book Making Its
Way To You
With only 10 days behind
schedule, the Guías Telefónicas
del 2006 (2006 White Pages
Telephone Directory), began to
hit the streets of the Gran Área
Metropolitana (GAM) - San José.
On July 31, the first 120.000 of
a total of 900.000 were made
available following printing
problems. The new directory was
to have been on the streets on
July 21.
Contractural problems between
the state monopoly in
telecommunications, the
Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE), and the
private company, Verizon,
affected the publication of the
telephone directory in 2005 and
for this year.
ICE decided to give its
subsidiary, Radiográfica
Costarricense S.A. (Racsa), the
job of publishing the white
pages, that will cost us$3.5
million dollars.
The Trejos Hermanos printing
company was awarded the contract
after a public tender and as
usual the Cruz Roja (Red Cross)
will distribute the directories
door to door for a fee of ¢143
million colones (us$277.500).
ICE decided to rescind the
contract with Verizon when the
private company decided to
publish two directories, one for
San José and one for the
province. ICE says it never
authorized the change, while
Verizon officials said that they
had gotten the green light for
the change.
ICE says that having two
directories would mean for those
customers in San José wanting a
number in say Puntarenas and
vice versa would have to incur
the cost of calling the 113
directory service because
neither would have the
information in their respective
telephone books.
Since there was no telephone
directory for 2005 and one for
2006 was shaky grounds, the
Autoridad Reguladora de los
Servicios Públicos (Aresep) -
the government agency that
regulates public prices and
services - obligate ICE to
provide the 113 service free of
charge to all customers, a move
that causes the institution to
lose some ¢1.140 million colones
(us$221.000) in revenues.
According to Claudio Bermúdez, a
manager at ICE, the loss will be
added to the costs Verizon will
have to compensate the state
agency.
The 2007 to 2009 white pages
directory will be printed by the
Colombian company Da Naranjo and
beginning with the 2010 through
to 2017, Racsa will take over
the entire publication process.
The white pages directory is
distributed, free of charge, to
most homes and businesses in the
country. Customers who don't
receive one can go to any ICE
agency and pick one or more up.
The book is free to anyone.
|
|
