3G
Sales Lukewarm, No Appointment Necessary
Beginning This Week
The sales of the 3G cellular network have
been slow, with less than 11.000 lines sold
in the first week of its introduction, of
which 6.000 were customers moving from the
TDMA service. The last time ICE introduced
new cellular lines it sold its maximum 5.000
lines per day.
So, what is the difference this time?
Simple, new subscribers of the 3G service
must have a 3G phone. And that is wherein
lies the problem, 3G phones are expensive
and few options are available in Costa
Rica's retail market.
Few of the customers who subscribed to the
3G already had their own phones, while the
majority purchasing 3G units from ICE
itself, as the institution makes changes to
become more user friendly and offering more
services.
However, that hasn't worked so well, for the
first week at least.
Although ICE is offering 3G cellular phones
from Nokia, Motorola and ZTE, only ZTE
phones where available by the end of the
week, as most customers decided to choose
Nokia and Motorola, depleting ICE's
inventory.
Jaime Palermo, head of ICE's Dirección de
Servicio al Cliente (customer service) said
that the sales of the phones went well, as
they are new to the market and more services
than a GSM phone.
Palermo added than in time ICE will also be
offering 3G phones from Sony Ericsson, LG,
Samsung and Huawei (the Chinese company that
installed the 3G network).
Customers who do not have a 3G phone and
cannot afford the one-time cost at a retail
store, can opt for one of several ICE plans
that include the phone and airtime with the
cost spread out over 12 and 18 months.
For instance, ICE's Plan Kolbi* offers
customers 150 minutes of call time, 350
minutes of SMS and 10 minutes of MMS for
¢30.363 monthly for a Nokia 5800 or ¢31.519
for a Nokia E71. Plan Kolbi 500 offers 500
minutes of call time, 1500 minutes of SMS
and 25 of MMS for ¢40.844 and ¢42.000
monthly for the same phones. Both plans are
based on 12 months.
For those who want even more use, Plan Kolbi
Ejecutivo offers 1.000 minutes of call time,
500 minutes of SMS and 30 minutes of MMS for
¢57.118 monthly for the Nokia 5800 and
¢57.865 for the Nokia e71 on a 18 month
basis.
Only the Ejecutivo plan offers internet
included. With all the other plans,
customers have to subscribe to internet
seperately, which varies in costs depending
on connections speeds of between 128Kb to
4096Kb.
Customers who have their own equipment can
purchase the KPlan Kolbi which offers 60
minutes of call time, 30 minutes of SMS and
0 minutes of MMS for ¢2.900 per month. This
plan is the ICE basic plan it offers to all
other GSM and TDMA customers.
With all this, there is one caveat, although
the basic cost of the Kolbi plan is
inexpensive, use of the MMS (multimedia) and
internet can rack up a hefty monthly bill.
ICE does not yet have the costs for the MMS
or internet connection, nor is it making it
available just yet. ICE says the MMS and
wide band internet will be available in
January and costs could be similar to ICE's
Acelera plans which ranges from us$10 to
us$91 monthly, depending on the connection
speed.
Also, beginning this week, new customers do
not have to have a previous appointment.
Customers can walk in to any ICE agency,
with their 3G cellular telephone, and get
connected.
* Kolbi is ICE's 3G network.
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TDMA
Cellular Customers Must Give Up Their Lines
Next Year
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Switching From TDMA To GSM / 3G
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