A lot of people think that now there will be wholesale changes now that ICE will face competition.  I am not so sure… at least in the short term.  Let’s examine what has been happening. If this topic interests you, read on!

First,  ICE states that it will close or at least restructure Radiográfica Costarricense  (RACSA), its 245 employees, and move all those  Internet customers from Racsa, its wholly owned subsidiary, to its own network, affecting maybe  80.000 users.  RACSA customers would therefore be serviced by ICE and the rates would be unified.  Sound easy?  Nothing is so easy in Costa Rica.  Two issues here… and this gets a little screwy, so take notes!  Remember that RACSA, while owned by ICE, runs its own show.  RACSA customer service and in fact their overall service has been improving over the past several years  to the point where I now tell people they are quite good! RACSA also sells only Internet services (high speed and modem) but not communications.

ICE, however, is renowned for just terrible customer service and doing everything even remotely possible to inconvenience the customer base.  This is something that should not surprise anyone as most monopolies never have to compete and therefore do not have to deal with the concept of making the customer happy.   Further, the technicians at RACSA are clearly more knowledgeable, or perhaps they are more accessible.  Hard to tell… but either way, they solve issues whereas ICE techs often blame the problem on you or deny there is a problem.

OK… so with the existing structure, RACSA can re-sell Internet  service (i.e. wholesale it) and they do.  Two of their customers are Cabletica and Amnet both distributors of cable TV services. Both of those companies sell cable TV with optional Internet (cable modem Internet).  You can buy cable TV with no Internet connectivity, but you can not buy Internet service from them without buying the cable TV service as well.

Now when ICE restructures RACSA, Amnet and CableTica customers will be moved to ICE.  ICE though, does not sell cable services so far as I know… so that means if I am getting this correctly,  AMNET and CableTica customers will have to all have new DSL installs, new equipment, etc.  UGH! This will effectively put Amnet and CableTica out of the Internet business.  Why do we (or at least I) care?  Because CableTica has  hands down the best customer services of all the companies in my opinion. Those businesses using cable modem service from either company may therefore have some serious issues ahead of them. But…. now we have this:

THIS week,  Amnet has announced they will cut the umbilical with RACSA and sell Internet services directly.  How?  They must, of course, buy services and connectivity directly from ICE and must also arrange to connect to the two underwater international cables in Parrita and Limon that connect to the Internet backbone.

Sounds simple… huh? Oh, did I forget to mention that Amnet also announced that they will compete with ICE for the cell phone business in Costa Rica?  Amnet was purchased last year by cellular service provider Millicom International Cellular, S.A. .  Gee!  I wonder if ICE is happy about that! I betcha not!

Nothing so far from CableTica.

So why am I writing all this? Well for those of you old enough to remember, once upon a time in the giant country to the North, there was a pretty GOOD communications monopoly called American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Their service was just about as good as you an get anywhere.

Well one day, the mean old US government said, “NO MORE MONOPOLIES”  and broke apart AT&T.  The problem was that AT&T owned all the land, all the infrastructure, all the wiring, all the central offices… well you get the point. Startup company MCI just did not open the doors.  AT&T made life VERY difficult with major issues as regarded setting wholesale rates to providing access to all the above infrastructure. On the surface, they seemed cheerful enough about having the competition… but that was on the surface.  It took years and a zillion law suits and more zillions or dollars before MCI truly entered the US communications market.

ICE has kind made it clear they have no plans to go peacefully into the night…. so I asked myself, “I wonder who in Costa Rica  owns all the land, all the infrastructure, all the wiring, all the central offices, routers, contracts with backbone providers….”.  Things that make you go… hmmmm.

I have no idea how communiations and Internet services in Costa Rica will be affected.  Maybe everyone will just get along and overall, services and customer support will reign supreme with many happy and properous companies each providing these better services at lower prices.  Or not….?  Comment welcome~!

Some background for readers. There are two cellular systems here, TDMA being the oldest and the only one the works pretty much all of the time, and the GSM system, that should work better, but does not. In fact, it works poorly at best. Callers often get the “Try again later” message and even when there is cell service, connections are not always stable. In general, TDMA is the way to go though there are a few locations (Dominical, Nosara and Samara come to mind) where the only system that works well is a GSM phone. So you want a TDMA phone? Interestingly, there are no more new TDMA phones available in Costa Rica. Any you buy are reconditioned. Besides… there are no phones lines available anyway. Sheesh!

The plan to discontinue the TDMA system was based on ICE planned upgrading of the current GSM system to the Third Generation GSM known as 3G, a vastly superior communications system (and part of Apple’s new iPhone configuration). It is faster and offers a ton of options including Internet. Of course future success would also be based on having the towers available, etc… but that is a different story.

In any case, ICE’s plans were basically correct and once installed and the tower location issues fixed, it should have allowed for the discontinuation of TDMA and offered users a fine, though more costly, solution. Of course THAT was before ICE sent out the bids to install the new 3G system.

The bids went out and only one company bid the project, Huawei Technologies. Well that would be fine as Huawei is most certainly a capable business partner, but ICE planned a budget of $224 million and Huawei submitted a bid of $580 million. Oops! Did someone make a really big error in calculation? As ICE has a history of poor planning, this would not be a really big surprise. In fact, it appears that (though I cannot confirm this), ICE changed the bid specs in June, 2008 adding 500 terminals to the specs but expecting no increase in cost. Huh? I admit to not knowing what is a terminal… but adding 500 of anything would seem to me to be an additional expense that needed to be considered.

Of the six bidders, FIVE (like the Ericsson de Costa Rica (current provider of one of the country’s two GSM networks), Continuex S.A. (distributor of Samsung in Costa Rica, ZTE Corp. and Nokia Siemens Network) decided not to bid citing fears of not being able to deliver to ICE’s specs.

So now what? Who knows?? The $356 million difference is huge and ICE clearly will have to go back to the planning stage. It seems unlikely they will or even can accept Huawei’s bid. They do not have the funding… or maybe they do!

Just this week, ICE announced that they wish to expand services to other Central American countries. Of course those of you who are skeptics might suggest that ICE put its own house in order before planning such an expansion…. the more pragmatic might just suggest ICE forego expansion and use THAT money to get a good funcional and working GSM system.

As always… more shall be revealed!

If you fall into either of the above categories, by all means read on!

Basically, the change is pretty simple. If you are calling any cell phone number, you must now dial 8 first. If you are dialing to any landline phone (home, office etc.) you must first dial 2.

How do you know if a number belongs to a cell phone or is a land line? Easy! All cell phones begin with 3, 8, or 9 (NOT 900 numbers though!)

Anything else is a land line.

Examples:

From Costa Rica dialing to a cell phone, you will dial: 8-xxx-xxxx where xxx-xxxx is the current cell phone number.

From Costa Rica dialing to a land line phone, you will dial: 2-xxx-xxxx where xxx-xxxx is the current land line phone number.

From outside Costa Rica, you will dial your international access code (in the US that would be 011) then the NEW dialing codes, then the number.

Example: From the USA calling a Costa Rica land Line, you will dial 011-506-2-xxx-xxxx and to a Costa Rica cell phone, you would dial 011-506-8-xxx-xxxx.

Now I am sure this is going to cause vast confusion, but if ICE does their job, and they appear to doing so, this should go smoothly.

800 numbers (free) and 900 number (the ones that cost YOU to dial) are unaffected.

The ICE three digit service numbers (113, 115, 199, 193 etc) likewise remain unchanged.

Want more info?

Check out these links (in English)

http://www.grupoice.com/esp/temas/camp/2_8_dig/index_eng.htm

and

http://www.grupoice.com/esp/temas/camp/2_8_dig/doc/preg_frecuentes_7_8_dig_eng.pdf

If you are doing business in Costa Rica, you need to get on the stick to get business cards, stationery, and web sites changed.

If you are from another country doing business here, or if you have family here and need make calls into Costa Rica, you should notify family and employees of these changes.

As some of you know, several of my companies here in Costa Rica are “high tech” related, especially the web hosting business where we host thousands of customers world wide. Server and computer security are paramount issues as you might guess.

So when I got a phone call yesterday asking me my thoughts about this rash of Internet bank fraud and seeking advice, I decided rather than answer her question immediately, I would BLOG about it and maybe pass on some ideas for my readers. While this relates to the banking thing, it is really germane to ANY Internet transaction that uses passwords, bank information, credit cards or ANY confidential data.

This will not be a “techy” post. I’ll try to keep it very basic so non-techies can understand what they can do (MUST do) to avoid Internet fraud.

I am sorry, but this will be a long post, but I cannot recommend strongly enough that your read this.

If this topic interests you, read on!

First, let me begin with this. Internet banking or for that matter any Internet commerce IS inherently safe if you take responsibility for protecting your computer, protecting confidential information, and learning about Internet safety.

The problem, of course, is that many people either do not know how to do this, think it is too technical, or frankly, cannot be bothered to learn (until they lose some large green, then amazingly, they have all sorts of time!).

Connection to the Internet – Computing Environment

Of course the first thing to discuss is your connection to the Internet. Basically, there are three ways you can connect and variations of those that we won’t get into here.

• Connect via modem
• Connect by cable modem, DSL or another “always on” connection, meaning you do not have to LOGIN each time you use the Internet
• Connect via a wireless connection, meaning you have no wires hanging off your computer when actually on line. You are sending and receiving radio signals from your PC to a box often called a wireless router, most capable of handling a number of wireless computers at the same time.
• Connect via and Internet cafe or other public locations that offer use of a PC to go online.

RULE ONE: YOU SHOULD NEVER FOR ANY REASON CONNECT TO YOUR ONLINE BANK ACCOUNT (OR ANY OTHER WEB SITE THAT INVOLVES YOUR FINANCES OR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION) FROM ANY INTERNET CAFE OR PUBLIC LOCATION USING COMPUTERS OFFERED BY THE CAFE OR PUBLIC LOCATION.

RULE TWO: YOU SHOULD NEVER FOR ANY REASON CONNECT TO YOUR ONLINE BANK ACCOUNT (OR ANY OTHER WEB SITE THAT INVOLVES YOUR FINANCES OR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION) FROM ANY INTERNET CAFE OR PUBLIC LOCATION USING COMPUTERS OFFERED BY THE CAFE OR PUBLIC LOCATION.

RULE THREE: YOU SHOULD NEVER FOR ANY REASON CONNECT TO YOUR ONLINE BANK ACCOUNT (OR ANY OTHER WEB SITE THAT INVOLVES YOUR FINANCES OR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION) FROM ANY INTERNET CAFE OR PUBLIC LOCATION USING YOUR OWN LAPTOP OR OTHER COMPUTER UNLESS YOU HAVE INSTALLED THE NECESSARY SOFTWARE TO PROTECT YOUR COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT.

RULE FOUR: YOU SHOULD NEVER USE A PUBLIC WIRELESS CONNECTION AT ALL.

It is important that you understand that regardless of how you connect, the instant you connect to the the Internet, your computer is vulnerable. Note the word instant. Therefore, you must have your computer protected before you ever connect to the Internet.

If you do not, you are exposed to potentially serious issues.

Your computing environment

What do I mean by “protection”? There are two critical items.

Anti Virus

First, you absolutely MUST have a good anti-virus program on your PC. By good, I mean a program that updates itself with new virus, worm, and Trojan horse information every time you log on the the Internet. Many of the best known names say they do. They do not. Most only update what they consider to be critical. The rest are updated once per week. This is nonsense! As it is estimated that between 20-40 new virus’ are released DAILY, updating once per week is just nonsense!

There are two excellent programs available, both from Europe and can easily be configured to update the virus info as often as hourly. On all our business PC’s, we have it set to every three hours.

Kaspersky and F Secure are the names of the software that we use, and you can find links to their web sites at the bottom of this post. Just scroll on down!

**Quick note to modem users! Modems users often login and immediately start reading emails or surfing. This is a mistake. Even if you are using high quality anti-virus programs like the ones I mentioned above, it takes time to download the newest virus information. Depending on when you were last online and your connection speed, from a minute or so to maybe ten minutes! Login by modem… then WAIT until your protection has caught up with you.

Firewall

The second thing that is needed, whether you have an “always on” connection (cable, DSL, etc.) or use a modem, is a BI-DIRECTIONAL firewall.

A firewall is a program that keeps the bad guys from getting in to your PC over your connection to the Internet. Many users of Windows PC’s use the firewall that is included free in the XP or Vista Operating systems. This is not enough!

Why?

Nowadays, the use of keyloggers is everywhere and especially at public locations and Internet cafes. A keylogger is a tiny program that can be installed on your PC without your knowledge. It is ridiculously easy to do this! It can be sent in an email, downloaded from a web site you visit, hidden in a Microsoft Word document… and in many other ways!

Then, every time you touch your keyboard, this tiny program records every key stroke you make! That information is then sent over the Internet to the bad guys!

They key phrase here is: “…sent over the Internet to the bad guys!”

This means that the keylogger program must have outward bound access to the Internet in order to send the information. THAT is why you need a firewall that not only controls (blocks) what wants to come IN to your PC, but also can block what wants to get OUT of your PC without your knowledge or permission. Most firewalls (Windows XP for example) do not do this. There may be other firewalls that do so. I use a product by Checkpoint; again, there are links at the bottom of this post so you can get more information.

Wireless (inalámbrico)

Wireless is just that. Your computer transmits and receives just like a little radio station. That means anyone near you can easily intercept those radio signals and can see them on their computer. The software to do this is free on the Internet. While it is a bit more complex than a keylogger, it does not take a computer scientist to do this.

EMAIL

So you may say, “All I do is check my email!” and surf the net”.

OK… so now, the bad guys can have access to your email! THAT means they can now ask for a lost password in your name, then get or change the password and erase all trace they were there!

OK, now some users use a webmail connection!  This is very common.  Or, they use Tahoo, etc.  THEN they leave the old messages stored on their account.  NOW, when someone gets access to their email, they can read old emails… and there they can find a treasure trove of things including passwords or lost password email, etc.

RULE FIVE:  NEVER LEAVE EMAIL ON A SERVER (your email account online).  USE A GOOD EMAIL PROGRAM AND DOWNLOAD THE EMAIL TO YOUR COMPUTER AND STORE IT THERE.  Just think of what someone can find reading the past years of your emails.

Also, a really knowledgeable hacker person can get into your PC via a wireless connection! There, they can read, copy files and do other bad things. Every time I go to Bagelmans or Dennys or some hotel lobby, I see people logged on wireless thinking all is well. One day I saw a guy sitting in his car just outside one of these locations obviously using his laptop.

Was he just using the wireless for free? Probably. Right?

While there are ways to 100% protect a PC in a wireless environment, they are simply too complex for this post.

In any case… can you see the problem here? It is amazingly easy to get someone’s confidential information via the Internet.

Couple this with people who still open email that is clearly SPAM (and make no mistake, people open millions every day!) or from unknown persons, and you can see why the burden has to fall on you to protect your computing environment. Now ad a little surfing and this problem begins to take shape.

Want more? Add kids and teens! They surf everywhere and a favorite trick of hackers is to place malware (bad programs) on sites kids will be attracted to as they KNOW the kids are using mom and dad’s PC!

Passwords

Many think that using a good password and changing it regularly is enough . It is not. However, it is important to know what is a good password. For all my business access, I use complex passwords i.e. “wV1E4GJY18Ct5″. Nasty, but required in my work. Sometimes we throw in random punctuation marks as well.

However these kinds of passwords are not practical nor necessary for an average user who needs to remember the password (as everyone knows it should never be written down, RIGHT?).

So here is a little password trick.

Look around you. Find two items totally at random. From where I am writing, I can see a gourd and a table. Now, think of a number between 19-99. OK so now take that number and place it between the two words thus: gourd79table.

Now randomly capitalize 2-4 letters thus: gouRD79tAble.

You now have a pretty nasty password nearly impossible to guess and even a random password generator will never find it. Whether you use this technique or another, NEVER EVER use birthdays, names, places, ANY ID numbers of any kind for passwords. You would be flabbergasted at how much of everyones private life is already on the Internet.

Those “security test questions”

How many times have you seen a password test question something like, “What was your mother’s maiden name?” used as the test question? How dumb! Your mother’s maiden name (also probably known as your grandfather’s last name) can likely be found on hundreds of genealogy web sites or other public databases! Piece of cake for any good hacker. That is why I use the first name of the second barber who ever cut my hair as my correct answer to what was my mother’s maiden name. Let them try to find THAT out!

Summation

You must have your PC protected. I can promise you that Internet Cafes do NOT have this protection. While protecting one PC is not expensive, protecting 20-30 computers is not cheap. Also, they just do not care of course as it is not their responsibility.

• Download, install and learn to use good anti-virus and firewall software and keep them current
• Use proper passwords like those above and change them frequently
• Make sure that any time you are entering private information over the Internet that the web site is using a security certificate. You can tell this by 1. Checking for a little “lock” icon at the bottom of the web page in the browsers border. To see what I am referring to, go here.Now down at the bottom of your browser, you can see the little lock! That indicates a secure web site.Another way is to make sure the URL (web address) begins with https:// and NOT just http:// without the “s”. The “s” indicates that a security certificate is present to encrypt what you type (but remember, NOT over wireless!!)
• Avoid using wireless… period!
• Avoid using any public PC anywhere.
• If you chose to ignore this, never ever use a public PC if you will be entering even ONE piece of confidential information.
• Never open unsolicited email. Sometimes just opening an email can do damage!
• Surfing can be OK if and only if you have ALL the proper protective software installed and current on your PC.

Protection must be on your PC and for that reason, if you MUST use an Internet cafe, install these protections on your PC first and connect your PC (laptop more likely) directly (via cable) to the Internet cafe’s connection. Just about all locations offer this provision as do most hotels nowadays.

Here are links to the companies mentioned above:

One of the zillion neat things about using Wordpress as your Blog software is the ability to change the theme (look and feel) of the Blog pretty much any time you get the urge.

The last theme, brownish in nature, was OK, but some folks found hard to read. The prior theme that I really liked (the one with the raindrops on green leaves) was excellent, but after 6 months of trying, I could never get the ’search’ feature to work properly. Searching in a Blog this size is important as there are years of Posts on many different topics. Many people just click one of the Categories that are listed to the right, but that is dependent on the Post author correctly ticking off check marks in all the appropriate categories.

Anyway, while changing a Wordpress theme talkes about 10 seconds, adding back the custom coding on this blog will take days and will most assuredly screw up the site until I fix it! So please be patient if you click here and the display is truly fouled up. Trust that I am all over it! Sadly (or happily), I am buried in work and this Blog must come behind my actual income producing labors.

Love it? Hate it? Could give a hoot? Feel free to leave a comment.

Many locations are important population centers like parts of Curridabat, Tibás, Heredia and Cartago. S anto Domingo de Heredia had just FIVE connections remaining.

Outside the Central Valley, there are the same issues in Ciudad Quesada (San Carlos), Liberia, Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Jacó. In several areas, NO connections remain, and people are now faced with a waiting list similar to the ever-popular bi-annual cell phone fiasco. ICE in Tibás states there are no services because the central station is saturated and because there are modems no available. HUH? There simply are no more connections in those central offices AND even if there were, there are no routers!

So now ICE has to go to the Contraloría (the bean counters for the Republic) and ask for money to expand the system that should have been expanded 4-5 years ago but was not because they did not ask for the money nor make a case for expanding these services that are strategically critical to Costa Rica and its development.

Seems like every day or so, we have ICE telling us “NO TLC” (free trade agreement) and ICE employees marching in parades to demonstrate that “Costa Rica don’t need no Stinking TLC”. The parade was probably lead by the guy who heads strategic planning.

So tell me if I am wrong here. If YOU were a monopoly charged with providing electricty and communications services to this country, and you did not want foreign competition to come in and clean your clock, would it not make sense to provide the best available services to those voters who will soon decide the fate of the TLC?

But no… I guess not!

Instead we have graft, lousy or non-existent cell phone service and no cell phone lines, rolling electrical blackouts affecting the entire country, and (now) no capacity to expand those Internet service that affect world wide communications and the growth and development of this nation!

I have stayed out of this TLC thing as 1. I do not fully understand all of its implications for Costa Rica and 2. I frankly think ALL foreigners, legal or not, are guests and truly have no right to stick their noses in these issues unless they are actually citizens and must (by law).

That said, I sure am wondering when the Costa Rican people will tire of taking it in the shorts from ICE, CAJA and the rest of the monopolies that exist here.

However, if you live in any of the many hundreds of other cities outside the central valley or the tourist spots, your only option is a telephone modem, or perhaps a (quite poorly working) connection using a GSM cell phone. Either way, you are getting not only a very slow connection speed but often unreliable service as well.

Over the past few years, there have been companies promoting satellite Internet service in Costa Rica. On the surface, this seems like a great idea for those needing a decent connection speed but who prefer to live outside the main population areas.

As I have written in The REAL Costa Rica, these installation are totally illegal in Costa Rica.

If this topic is of interest to you, read on…

These satellite setups must not only receive Internet signals (download) the must also transmit information back to the satellite (upload) to work properly. That is where lies the problem.

Costa Rica is a sovereign nation, and as with every country I know of, you must be licensed to send out radio signals. In Costa Rica, the only companies who can legally do this are ICE and RACSA. ICE does not offer any service though RACSA does offer a truly horrible satellite setup that receives by dish, but actually transmits (uploads) by TELEPHONE connection.

Any other satellite setup that sends a signal (transmits) is illegal.

So how do these companies get away with this? Probably the same reason you can run a red light here. Little or no enforcement. So if you decide to spend the thousands of dollars to buy one of these systems, you should be aware that, although you may not get caught, you are absolutely breaking the law.

So do they work?

The answer is not clear. I have met only 3-4 people who paid the big bucks, and I have not met one yet who was even remotely happy. One of these is a real estate agency (and a client of mine) with offices around Dominical. After more than a year of trying to get the system working, they wrote it off. Really had no other option.

The others were just people who moved here and needed a high speed connection. All expressed unhappiness with their purchase. Now I am sure the must be somebody here who does not feel ripped off, so if you are a happy customer, by all means add your comment at the bottom.

Here though is a letter I received yesterday from a gentleman who is not at all happy, and I publish it here because he expresses almost verbatim what others have told me.

Many who live in areas without land based phones or accessibility to Internet connections other than cyber cafes might consider contacting one of the Internet satellite installers advertised in the English speaking papers.

If you do, it is a case of buyer beware. There seems to be a major problem with unethical and fraudulent schemes directed towards foreign and English speaking people. Because it is a small country that has limited means of combating these schemes the perpetrators feel they can operate with impunity.

I contacted one of these companies that the ad and website indicated was a local company operating in Costa Rica. I called the local number and was referred to a number in the US. I was sent a contract which I signed and my credit card was charged $2599 for the equipment and $500 for the installation and $99 a month for the service.

The first indication something was wrong was when the modem I contracted for was switched to an older model. The installation was to include grounding but I was told I would have to contract that out.

The service lasted 31 days when the modem stopped working. I contacted technical support and after several days were told I would have to buy a new modem for $1900 and an undisclosed amount for a service call. This would mean it would cost me $5600 for a total of 31 days service. The cost of the outmoded modem was 4 or 5`time’s industry standards so it became clear I had been had.

Through investigation I learned the modem manufacturer warranted the modem. The so-called local company was one of 4 or 5 companies that is interconnected and was a front for one of these companies. There is misrepresentation in all their websites. The pattern of withholding service and demanding additional money is well documented as March 3, 2006 they notified around 3000 of their subscribers that unless they came up with additional money their service would be cut off in 5 days.

In checking with the National Register it was determined none of these companies are licensed to do business in Costa Rica. Also contacted was Miguel Montero of Racsa, the agency that controls all satellite internet installations, not only are they not licensed but such installations are illegal.

It is a sad state of affairs when these companies are allowed to operate. t was one of the reasons we came to Costa Rica. To avoid the pattern of getting money anyway you can. Bill Strong.

A couple of comments. There are NOT 3,000 installations in Costa Rica. I doubt there are more than 50. The writer is speaking of all customers of this company world wide.

I also have not verified the “interconnecting companies” thing.

However, it is clear that if you do decide to break the law and use one of these systems, this is a clear case of “do your due diligence” also known as caveat emptor.

As mentioned above, I encourage anyone who has and is happily using a satellite system to comment below. I promise not to report you to the satellite police!

Why is this a big deal? Because with this announcement, we know that it will be at least another year… more likely two-three years before cell phone (telephone) numbers can again be purchased. Believe it or not, this is probably good news.

The current GSM network has been criticized by users for offering poor service, in both signal strength and coverage. Further, at peak hours, service is poor, calls are dropped or not connected. Coverage in many areas of the country is just crummy. In reality, these are understatements as the current GSM system truly sucks and offers lousy service at best.

Purchasing a new system may well heal some of the issues now prevalent with the current system. According to one report, ICE has stated that the new system will be available within 8-9 months to a year, but those of us who live here find that to be a bit… well… optimistic. Nothing happens in nine months in Costa Rica… except births. In reality, things just don’t work that way in Costa Rica. So for now, those who are eligible to buy a cell phone line (currently citizens and legal Costa Rica Residents), must add their names to a list… and wait… and wait…

The few TDMA cell lines (also known as “the old system” or more accurately “the system that actually works”) were available last week, but they are now gone.

This turned out to be a pretty simple request thanks to the folks at Feedburner, the company that handles my RSS feeds. Interested? To subscribe, just place your email address in the subsciption form at the top-right. You will immediately receive a verifying email which you must answer. Then you will be all set. The system will send you a copy of any new posts in HTML format at about 6-9 AM CST. No posts? No email.

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Well thanks to your local friends at ICE (why YES!, The very same ones who are fighting the Free Trade Agreement tooth and nail), the good old days are returning!

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) – the state monopoly on telecommunications – announced that it had about 15.000 cellular lines left and THAT was a couple of weeks ago. Those lines are what remains of the “new” GSM service that was part of 600.000 lines that were offered for the first time last December. You DO remember that right? The 600,000 lines that never work?

Well just like the women who buy those awful pointy shoes because they think they are stylish and make their legs look great, this proves there stilll more than enough suckers in the world that over 585,000 of those barely working phone lines have been sold. Was at PT Barnum that said something about a sucker a minute?

According to news articles, ICE did not foresee the high demand (HUH????) and things will, in a matter of days, revert to the way they were before the “new” system was installed by the Ericsson company.

Of the old 400.000 GSM lines installed by Alcatel (that didn’t work either, BTW), there aren’t any left… and what us WORSE… ICE doesn’t even have any of the TDMA lines (also known as “the lines that really WORK“.

What sorta frosts my twinkie is that next week, we are going to face another ICE work slowdown… offices closed Monday and Tuesday… while ICE workers take to the streets to try to convince their fellow citizens that the Free Trade Agreement (TLC) is not needed because ICE is running efficiently and needs no outside interference. Okaaay. Yeah. Whatever.