Costa Rica's mobile telephony market won't be open to competition until 2011.
In the past 10 years, Costa Rica has been losing what was a privileged position in telecommunications. Statistics from the International Telecommunications Union show that the country, with 1.800.000 mobile phone subscribers, is ranked 160th in the list of 225 countries.
With 42 mobile phone lines per 100 inhabitants, Costa Rica is way below its Central American neighbors. Panama has 115, El Salvador 113, Guatemala 109, Honduras 85, Nicaragua 55. In the American continent, only Cuba and Haiti fare worse.
Costa Rica's telecommunications superintendence is negotiating advising deals for developing the required public bidding processes.
These agreements include one with the World Bank, and another with U.S. company Telecommunications Management Group (TMG), who will be advised by Costa Rican law firm BLP Abogados and Deloitte.
"TMG is a consulting company dedicated to telecommunications and information technologies ...
Broadband access to Internet is key for development, and mobile telephony seems the optimal way of making Internet available everywhere.
The upcoming opening of the Costa Rica telecommunications market could bring massive broadband access to the Internet, without relying on a physical cable, through third and fourth generation mobile telephony.
Sebastián Cabello is the regulations manager of the GSM Association, a global entity that groups network and mobile terminal manufacturers. He explained to Elfinancierocr.com: "The vast amount of cell phone users worldwide would make it easier to bring broadband Internet to any corner of a country, enabling more data transmission capacity, and even video."