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ICE
Says More GSM Lines To Be Available Soon
This week the Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE) - the state monopoly on
telecommunications - released 40.000 GSM
cellular lines that were bought up as quicker
than the institution can make them available.
However, 30.000 who had clamoured for a
connection were left out in the cold.
Claudio Bermúdez, telecommunications manager at
ICE, said that due to the high demand there is
the possibility of releasing another batch of
GSM lines soon, possibly within months and with
the introduction of 300.000 new GSM lines by the
end of the year.
Bermúdez said that ICE is keeping a record of
those registered for the service and will be
contacting them when the lines are available.
Last week, ICE announced that on May 10 it would
begin to take requests for service, however,
getting through to either the 145, 115 or 193
customer service line was almost impossible, as
the lines were saturated, ICE receiving some
23.000 calls in less than 48 hours.
Bermúdez did not say when the second round of
offerings will be made, saying it all depends on
the number of lines available, lines that are
being re-leased to new customers because their
current customers either failed to pay for the
service or, though rare, cancelled their
subscription.
ICE instituted a policy over a year ago
canceling subscription to a line if two
consecutive cellular phone bills go unpaid.
Customers who fail to make payment will usually
have up to 60 thereafter to visit an ICE agency
and make good on all back dues, failing which
the subscription will be cancelled and offer to
new customers.
Since the lines were available on May 15,
Bermúdez says that as of 4:00pm yesterday there
were still 3.700 lines available, however, these
are being sold only through authorized agents,
who along with the purchase of a new cellular
phone can provide the service connection.
Bermúdez added that ICE has some 100.000
cellular lines of the older TDMA technology
available. TDMA, unlike GSM, offers only basic
service with text messaging and the cellular
phones are limited in technology, not
incorporating a camera, mp3 players, etc.
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