Chapter 9
Telecommunications
Telecommunications in Costa
Rica is dominated by the state run monopoly
phone company, ICE.
ICE provides all land line and cellular phone service in Costa
Rica, plus also provides internet service
throughout the country via ADSL.
While telephone costs are low, this state monopoly has
problems with efficiency and corruption.
Currently there is an ongoing investigation into a former president’s
role in awarding a cellular contract to Alcatel,
which because of the scandal has been banned from further conracts
with ICE. Insiders at ICE have also been
accused in the scandal.
ICE has 3 cellular networks.
The original is the old TDMA network, and
currently this is the only network that has lines available. Of course, by the time you read this, there
may be no lines available.
The second network is the one built by Alcatel
some years ago, and is a GSM network. The interesting feature of this network is
that you can buy a new phone and remove the SIM chip
from your old phone and put it into the new one without having to get ICE to do
a change. The downside of this network
is that there are coverage problems and other issues.
The third network was just constructed by Ericsson, but the
lines have already been sold out. There are
issues with this network as well in some areas, but not as many as with the Alcatel network.
This is also a GSM network, but with this
network, you can’t remove the SIM chip and place it
into a new phone yourself, you have to go to ICE and have them do this for you.
The earliest any new lines will be available will be by the
end of this year, except for those lines that are recycled when subscribers
fail to pay their bill and have the line taken back by ICE.
ICE will only sell lines, both land line and cellular, to
residents and citizens of Costa Rica. If a person living here on a tourist visa
only wants to get a line, he or she will either have to have someone else get
the line in their name, which is not recommended
because that person can take the line back anytime they want and there is
nothing you can do about it. This
problem happened to me before I became a resident, and it was a very
frustrating experience indeed. There
are, in fact, certain crooks who make a little business of this practice.
They will even go so far as to have a lawyer notarize the
sale of the line to you. While this is
legal, ICE won’t recognize the sale, so it is an exercise in futility. And to sue the person for doing this takes
way too much time and expense to be worth it.
In my case, I had the line for only about 2 months before the crook sold
it to someone else, and I suddenly found one day that my phone was no longer
working. Frantic calls to the seller
proved to be fruitless, so I lost all of the money I had spent on the line.
The only other way to get a phone line without being a
resident or citizen is to buy a Costa Rican corporation, and then have the
corporation [SA] get the line in its name.
While this is a more expensive and cumbersome process, it is the only
way someone here on a tourist visa can get a phone line. And, if you decide to leave the country, you
should be able to easily sell the package to someone else.
I have lawyers who can assist you in this process, and can
also give you an update as to whether ICE has any cellular lines available at
this time, as well as the status of how the corporation needs to apply. Please contact us at our customer service
email address for more information.
Internet Service
I have been here for 12 years, and it is only in the past 5
years or so that internet service has become reasonably usable here.
When I got here, the only thing available was one of the
worst dial up connections in the world! Direct
connections DID exist, but they were so expensive that only a very large
company could afford them. And the
bandwidth offered was pitiful. A 256
kbps connection back then cost around $6,000.00/ month and you had to wait a
long time to get it installed. And all
internet connection went through satellite hook ups.
The problems with the dial up connections were constant and
outrageous, but, as the only connection to the outside world at that time, it
was either that or nothing, because state owned monopoly RACSA
was the only legal provider of internet service back then.
RACSA is a subsidiary of ICE, and
now they both provide internet hookups.
Don’t ask me why the company is competing with itself,
many times the actions of government bureaucrats are totally incomprehensible
to real people.
Now, RACSA provides most of the
dial up service. You can get a flat rate
residential account, a regular account, or use the open 900 number account that
charges the internet useage to your phone bill in an
informal way. Of course, the 900 number service is the more expensive of the 3.
RACSA is also the only provider of
cable modem internet service. These are
a joint venture between cable companies AMNET and
Cable Tica, but you need to check with the respective
cable company that covers your area to see if it is available where you live,
because it doesn’t cover all areas with cable TV.
Generally, in the areas covered, this service is pretty good
and usually works better than the ADSL
equivalent. My experience is with AMNET, and their service is usually good, but there are
some areas where it is not. The good
thing about AMNET is that they provide good customer
service and tech support. I have heard
that the service offered by Cable Tica is also good,
and it of course is much better than the customer DISSERVICE offered by ICE for
its ADSL service.
ICE constantly changes its customer service number, there
are often no operators available on Sundays or holidays, and the hours are much
less than that offered by the cable companies or even RACSA. So, I would use the ICE ADSL
service only where cable was not available, or where the cable service is poor,
which happens in some areas.
RACSA still offers its regular
direct internet connections, but these are falling more and more into disuse
and are usually replaced by cable modem connections which are generally less
expensive and better. ICE also provides
direct connection service, but lately, the prices have fallen dramatically and
so has the quality of service.
The bottom line, then, is that you should elect to go with
the cable modem service first if it is available to you, and pick the other
ones last.
Prices have continued to fall as bandwidth has increased, so
at least Costa Rica
has now entered the modern world of internet connectivity, at least in the Central
Valley. In outlying areas,
service is often not available, and where it is, it is generally only the ADSL service.
Internet Phone Directory
ICE now offers an internet based directory listing service.
You can go there by clicking here.
