Costa Rica: ICE to Buy 400.000 Mobile Phone Lines

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) will buy 400.000 GSM phone lines from Ericsson Costa Rica.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Jaime Palermo, commercial director of the Institute, explained they have many 3G lines available for purchase, but clients prefer the GSM service, especially through pre-paid cards.

An article in Nacion.com noted that users prefer GSM, “because GSM devices are cheaper than their 3G counterparts”.

Previously, ICE had announced its intention of investing $17 million to improve the country’s GSM network.

¿Busca soluciones de inteligencia comercial para su empresa?



More on this topic

ICE Invests $17 Million in GSM Network

June 2010

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute will extend the coverage of its GSM network with 215 new radio bases.

Facing increased demand for GSM phone lines, the institute will buy new ones and make them available to consumers in July.

The decision to invest in GSM would be in response to little consumer interest for 3G devices and technology.

Three offers presented for 3G phones in Costa Rica

November 2008

Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE presented their offers today to the ICE for the third generation cellular network tender.

The Huawei Tecnologies offer was for $245.8 million, Ericsson presented an offer fro $340.9 million and ZTE Corp. for $446.9 million.

Huawei as well as ZTE presented the participation guarantee for $9 million and %6.7 million respectively. Ericsson presented ...

ICE will buy 300,000 lines from Ericsson

October 2008

Ericsson will provide the 300 thousand GSM lines that will be put on sale in December.

The Swedish company presented its technical and financial offer on Wednesday, however it did not make public the dollar figure. In its proposal, it plans to deliver additional equipment in order to offer better quality service. The Costa Rica Institute of Electricity (ICE) chose Ericsson directly in order to speed up the process.

Costa Rica may Ask for New Bidders on 3G Contract

August 2008

Costa Rica's monopoly GSM network operator, ICE, has decided not to accept a sole bid from China's Huawei for the supply of a 3G network.

The company has come under political pressure from the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias to reject the contract, and will consider retendering the contract.

ok