New Public Phones Allow Text Messaging
Each passing day technology gets closer to every citizen, like the new public telephones that the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) has been quietly installing in replacement of the older and not so functional public telephones.

The new public telephones called "multi pago" because they accept various types of payments - coins, both the 199/197 (Colibrí cars) and chips - offer more than for making a phone call, they also allow the sending of a text message to a cellular phone or email.

And the best is that during the testing period, all text messages sent from the multi pagos is free, yes, free!

The reason for the free messaging service is that units and the service is new and ICE has not yet received rate approval by the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos (Aresep), the state agency that regulates prices for public services, who is evaluating the units.

ICE began to install the new public telephones in October, but has kept it under wraps, allowing users to discover the phones and services for themselves.

In many cases, the new units are being placed next to the older public phones, while in other cases, they are replacing the older and out of date public phones that for the most part did not work properly. Some of silver plated coin phones are 30 years old, while the newer 'blue' phones that accepted the chip only worked some of the time, and the newer dark grey phones only accepted the Colibrí cards.

Many a user found using the nearest public phone a dilemma if they did not have the right payment method - a coin, a colibrí or chip card - which made placing a call frustrating at best. The new public phones solve that problem.

ICE says it will install 8.000 of the new public phones, however, not all will have the text messaging function working. ICE says only 25% of the new phones will allow the text messaging, for now, until the Aresep approves the rate for the servce.

Placing a call to a cellular or fixed line phone will cost the same as the older public phones.

Giselle Mejía, director of public telephones for ICE, explained that 10.000 complaints are received a month of public telephones not working and that 20% of the calls for reporting damage to public telephones due to vandalism.

Mejía explains that some believe that public phones cost nothing and thus have no problem abusing them. However, Mejía, says, that is far from the truth, as many as 1.5 million users - both residents and visitors - depend on public phones.

The new phones, Mejía explains, are sophisticated computers that allow the use of different paying methods and text messaging and are more resistant to abuse, vandalism and climatic conditions.

ICE is keeping quiet, for now, the cost of the new public phones.