SUTEL Unveils Call Requirements

SUTEL, the licensing board for cellular phone coverage, has announced requirements for companies that wish to compete against the ex-monopoly, ICE. They include 95% coverage of the country within five years and a $70 million minimum investment.

The coverage is to be expanded in three phases over five years, ending in 95% at the end of that period. SUTEL also set the bar for quality of cell services, including a minimum of 20 seconds between sending a text message and its receipt, assuming that both phones are adequately charged, according to La Nacion.

Naturally, the first phase covers the most populated area, the Central Valley, to be complete within 12 months. The second, to be finished two years after that, will cover developing Pacific coastal area, including Guanacaste province. Also included would be the sector north of Alajuela, such as San Carlos canton.

The third will be the rest of the country except for the most inaccessible and sparsely populated five percent, for example, the Talamanca Mountains. Limon province must await this phase, in keeping with its residents' complaint that it is "the forgotten province." Naturally, SUTEL would be overjoyed if the net was finished sooner.

George Miley, chairman of the SUTEL board, justified the slow deveopment by saying that the agency wanted to make its requirements attractive to prospective companies and so did not require immediate network completion for less developed areas.

The bidding opens up the long-delayed final breaking of ICE's monopoly begun when a referendum to establish the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States that narrowly passed in October, 2007. But it took months to pass a bill opening the telecommunications market to competition with ICE, a government-owned company somewhat of a sacred cow, especially among leftists here.