The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) will buy 400.000 GSM phone lines from Ericsson Costa Rica.
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”.
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.
Eduardo Doryan, executive president of the Institute, told Nacion.com that “ICE also wants to improve the 3G platform, to position it among consumers with higher purchasing power”.
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.
Ericsson has been awarded a GSM/EDGE contract by Digicel Group, making Ericsson the preferred supplier for Digicel's operations in the Caribbean, El Salvador and now in Honduras.
Under the agreement Ericsson will be the sole supplier of a GSM/EDGE network including core network, radio access and microwave transmission. It will provide subscribers with access to a reliable and robust network as well as services such as GPRS/EDGE mobile internet access, per-second billing and international roaming. The deal also includes Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch Solution, which is capable of carrying large volumes of voice traffic in a state-of-the-art network architecture.
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