ICE Proposes Conditioning New Cellular Service Subscriptions
In a cartoon in one of the leading Spanish language newspaper yesterday, the GSM cellular service was described as "Gastar Sin Medidas y no pagar" (spending without measure and then not paying).

The cartoon was aimed at the problem faced by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) - the state monopoly on telecommunications - where people have been running up large cellular telephone bills and then not paying, leaving the institution only the ¢12.500 colones deposit and to take costly legal action with little change of recovery.

The non-payment for cellular service is the reason ICE was able to offer 40.000 GSM cellular lines last week and soon some 30.000 more, most of them resulting from customers losing their lines for failure to pay.

The problem has forced the institution to take measures to reduce the problem.

One of the proposals being considered by ICE is to deny cellular service to customers who have a history of later payment, representing a risk to the state agency. ICE said that the proposal would include conditioning the service to those customers to offer prepaid service or ask for a larger deposit. Either action would require approval from the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicos Publicos (Aresep).

The proposal reforms the Reglamentación general de servicios de telecomunicaciones which has already been sent to the Aresep.

The reform, if approved, would allow ICE to ask for a current "orden patronal" as well as a light utility bill to confirm the address of the applicant and in some cases, like foreigners with residency, a guarantor with a good credit history.

The document sent to the Aresp also includes a directive by ICE to better its information base of its clients.

ICE says in its application to the Aresep that non-payment has grown in the last couple of years costing the institution billions of colones each year. The latest figures available were for 2005, where ICE says it lost ¢8 billion colones (us$15.5 million dollars) in revenue due to non-payment of cellular customers.

The proposal will mean that ICE will have the authority to decide if a customer will be connected based on their credit history, denying service is the customers presents a risk.

Currently, anyone (foreigners with Costa Rican residency or nationals) with ¢12.500 colones in their hand can subscribe to cellular service as long as they have no outstanding bills with ICE. If there is an outstanding bill, ICE only requires that the debt be paid off before being offered the service.

Claudio Bermúdez, subgerente de Telecomunicaciones del ICE, said that is vital that ICE have more information on its customers, more than just a copy of the cedula and a utility bill.

The Aresp has yet to comment on the ICE proposal.