ICE Bids to Hike Rates

ICE, the ex-monopoly phone company, has applied to ARESEP, the utilities regulatory agency, to eliminate its so-called "reduced" off-hour rates in a bid to raise costs to customers. Off-hours are from 7:00 in the evening to 7:00 in the morning and all day Saturday and Sunday.

The phone company has been doing everything in its power to delay opening of the cell phone market and maximizing its profits before losing its cell phone stranglehold. Both President Laura Chinchilla and the Supreme Court have lost patience with ICE, ordering the state-owned company to cease blocking opening of cell phone licenses to competitors.

During the non-peak hours, cell phones are charged 23 colones per minute instead of the weekday 30 colones. Fixed line phones are charged two colones per minute during off hours instead of the 4 colones during peak hours.

Calling for elimination of "reduced rates" is, of course, a public relations ploy. It is simply a rate hike and ARESEP will conduct simultaneous hearings next January 12 beginning at 5:15 p.m. at its San Jose offices as well as at the courts in Limon, Puntarenas, Heredia, Perez Zeledon, Liberia, Cartago and Ciudad Quesada in San Carlos canton.

ARESEP was once renowned for never meeting a rate hike it didn't like, but in the past decade has tightened its standards, sometime denying rate hikes completely or drastically reducing them.