A plan is being worked on in Costa Rica to implement a broadband internet network for 2,500 educational centers in different areas of the country.
The proposal which is being worked on by the government and Fonatel is in the planning stage, and aims to develop a broadband internet network with different speeds and capacities, which would be defined according to the number of users in each educational center.
In Costa Rica contracts have been awarded to the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad and Claro to provide telephony and broadband Internet services in six cantons in the south of the country.
The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) will be responsible for developing projects in Buenos Aires, Osa, Corredores, Coto Brus and Golfito. Meanwhile Claro de Costa Rica is in charge of projects in the area of Perez Zeledon.
Costa Rica has $216 million to spend in bringing telephony and internet services to areas with no communication, a situation that causes clashes between the President and the Telecommunications Superintendency.
President Chinchilla asked the telecommunications regulator in Costa Rica (SUTEL), to award the projects to bring internet services to schools to the state telecommunications company (ICE) without a bidding process.
The multitude of paperwork and the Fondo Nacional de Telecomunicaciones are the obstacles preventing major progress in implementing fast internet services in Costa Rica.
"There is a significant increase (according to preliminary reports) in the number of broadband internet connections. This is despite the fact that there have been delays in major projects for the country and which could make us progress faster," said Rowland Espinoza, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications.
An announcement has been made in Costa Rica for a tender for a project to give rural communities mobile and fixed telephone coverage, with funding from the National Telecommunications Fund.
The National Telecommunications Fund (Fonatel) is endowed with payments for operating licenses awarded to telecom operators such as Claro and Movistar, and currently has $190 million to be used to promote access to quality, timely, efficient, affordable and competitive telecommunications services, for the inhabitants of areas of the country where the cost of investment for the installation and maintenance of infrastructure for the provision of these services is not financially profitable.
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