ICE Cracks
Down on Late Payers; Switches GSM Service
From Alcatel To Ericsson
"El ICE le infoma que su servicio sera
suspendido...." is a message known well to
late payers of their cellular telephone
service by the Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE) - the state telecom, as
it attempts to reduce the number of late
payments and bad debt.
Normally, ICE allows from 8 to 10 days for
customers to pay their telephone bill before
cutting service. For a bill due on June 8,
for instance, ICE gave customers up to June
15 and 17 before service would be affected.
However, that is no more.
The crackdown affects both cellular and fixe
line telephone service.
Beginning with the June billing period,
service will be cut to any customer who has
not paid their bill on the due date and the
message of cutting service at a specific
date and time is a new tactic by the state
telecom, which will then add a late payment
and reconnection fee to the monthly bill and
discontinue service if a two consecutive
bills go unpaid.
Alcatel Network Moved To Ericsson
In other cellular news, ICE has begun the
transfer of the 400.000 Alcatel GSM cellular
lines to the Ericsson network in an effort
to improve service and coverage.
An ICE spokesperson said that the Alcatel
network, the first GSM cellular network in
the country, has experienced problems and
the decision to switch was preferred over
investing in upgrades.
The numbers affected are all GSM telephone
lines beginning with 8810 and 8851.
During the move, customers have experienced
problems with service, especially with the
voicemail that has been down from Tuesday
afternoon and all of Wednesday. ICE
officials say the voicemail service is
expected back online by the end of today
(Thursday).
Although there has been no official
announcement as of yet, Alcatel customers
will have to visit an ICE agency soon to
replace the "green" SIM chip for the
"purple" which is used on the Ericsson
network. The change has no cost and
according to our ICE sources, there is no
need for the owner of the service to visit
ICE, anyone with the phone in hand can make
the chip change.
An important note on the change is the
access code for the voicemail box.
Alcatel network numbers always came with the
last four digits of the telephone number as
the access code, that then could be changed
by the customer. However, on the Ericsson
network, the initial access code is 1234 and
then "#" and then prompted to change the
code to a personal four digit code.
ICE first contracted the GSM cellular
network to Alcatel, then to Ericsson when it
went through an expansion and following
accusations of bribery and corruption in the
Alcatel contracts.
Since then ICE has filed a damage suit of
us$67 million dollars against Alcatel and
prompted the decision to move the network
rather than continue dealing with the firm.
ICE is also working on expanding its
cellular network with the introduction of
the 3G network, possibly by the end of this
year, which will also see the disappearance
of the TDMA network in Costa Rica.
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