Going to World Cup? ICE Says To Take Your Cellular Phone With You
The state monopoly on telecommunications, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), wants to make sure that Costa Ricans going to the 2006 World Cup games don't lose their calls, by offering the "roaming costa rica" service to its clients who deposit at least us$50 before leaving Costa Rica.

The plan is simple. A customer deposits us$50 to either a Banco de Costa Rica or Banco Nacional account and then calling 800 ROAMING 9800 762 6464) or visit the Centro Especializado Servivios Móviles, located in San Francisco de Dos Rios, to active the service.

Calls or visit for the roaming service can be done only between 9:00am and 6:00pm, Monday to Friday and the promotion is valid only between June 2 and June 30, 2006.

The plan allows a cellular phone connected to the ICE GSM cellular network to be used in Germany and other countries that have "roaming" agreements with ICE.

The International Roaming service is not new. ICE introduced the service way back in April of 2003 and just like the ability of connecting to the internet by way of cellular phone, it has done a good job of not telling anyone about it. In actuality, before the World Cup promotion in the print media and television, few even, including ICE employees, were aware of the service.

However, there is one catch. The service, according to our call to ICE for information, we were told that each minute will you us$2.15.  Ouch!