ICE, A Company In
Change, But Sticks With Same Restrictive
Policies For Cellular Services
For more than a decade Costa Ricans and
foreigners living and visiting Costa Rica
have had to accept the decisions of the
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
(ICE) with respect to cellular telephone
service, with poor service, no coverage in
many areas and the banalities of a state
institution of dictates who can and who
cannot subscribe to their cellular service.
For decades ICE had the monopoly on
telecommunications. But that all changed at
the end of 2008 with the passing of the Ley
General de Telecommunicaciones, which allows
the opening of the telecom sector and breaks
the decades old ICE monopoly.
But what has really changed? Let's take a
look.
Improving on the TDMA technology that
was first in use in Costa Rica, ICE moved to
GSM. But, as with the TDMA, service was
spotty, especially in rural areas and there
was always a lack of sufficient lines to
meet the demand, causing long lines ups at
ICE offices when lines were made available.
The ICE policy also created black market for
foreigners and visitors who wanted to get
connected, since only citizens and "legal"
residents could subscribe to cellular
service, a policy that was instituted
quickly after the introduction of the first
cellular service in the late 90's.
Today, that policy continues, even tough the
technology has changed, like the ability to
offer pre-paid cellular service and the fact
that ICE now has more than sufficient lines
to meet the demand.
According to Jaime Palermo, director of
División de Clientes, ICE will soon make
available for pre-paid cellular service with
the GSM lines customers are trading in for
the 3G.
Palermo says that 110.000 GSM customers have
already switched over, the majority of
clients who had "high end" phones and wanted
to take advantage of services like the
transmission of data (internet over the
cellular network).
However, that news does not really change
anything for foreigners or visitors, as ICE
continues to maintain the "residency" policy
in effect, a policy that even extends to
subscribing only to the cellular internet
service, a service that uses a USB stick to
connect a computer to the 3G network.
Although ICE now has hundreds of thousands
of lines of the 3G network available and
will soon free up 300.000 lines of the GSM
network, foreigners living in Costa Rica and
those just visiting cannot obtain any type
of cellular service.
That policy even extends to those foreigners
who obtained their cellular service before
ICE instituted the residency policy, where
they can transfer their TDMA service to the
3G, but cannot obtain any new additional
services.
And it gets worse for those subscribers, as
ICE will not be returning the difference of
the deposit, not yet anyways.
Let me explain.
With the subscription to TDMA service, ICE
required a deposit of ˘60.000 colones
(us$260 dollars when the exchange rate was
˘225 colones to a dollar). Now it only
requires a ˘12.500 deposit (us$22).
Transferring TDMA customers could get a
refund or credit on the difference or the
entire deposit back if they cancelled their
service entirely. But, that is not happening
just yet, as ICE says it does not have the
ability to issue those refunds or credits
just yet. "Maybe in February", said Palermo.
For those who already took out their
calculator will notice that the refund is
some us$210 short. Now, multiply that by
hundreds of thousands of customers who are
subscribed to the TDMA.
How is that? Well, when ICE was asking for
˘60.000 colones, the exchange rate was
around ˘225 colones per one US dollar.
Now, the exchange rate is hovering at ˘570
colones per one us dollar, which means
˘47.500 colones is only us$83 and not us$210
when the deposit was paid. |
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