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Orlando Cascante, director of Mobile Services at ICE, confirmed yesterday that the Ericsson GSM lines were sold out as of last Wednesday.  The 600.000 Ericsson lines were sold in 11 months, about 2,000 lines per day.  TDMA lines are still available.

Cascante stated that some lines will be recovered in the short term due to non payment of the bills, on the average ICE disconnects 5,000 overdue users per month.

Alfredo Sasso, President of ASOFAC (Association of Representatives of Cellular Manufacturers) expressed displeasure at the lack of lines. “ICE offered prepaid lines, portability (changing from TDMA to GSM and keeping your number ) and they did not do it, now some of our members are overstocked on telephones. ”

ICE plans to increase by 50% the Ericsson and Alcatel cellular networks, an extra 500,000 lines, but no information was available as to the status of that project.  In Costa Rica there are 1.5 million cellular lines, 600,000 Ericsson GSM, 400,000 Alcatel GSM and 544,000 TDMA.

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad said Thursday that vandals have damaged a fiber optic communications line between Liberia and Cañas in Guanacaste. The communications monopoly said that its crews would be doing work on the line between 10 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday and that service might be interrupted.

The dock situation in Limón still is not resolved.

The government is ready to pay dock workers some $900,000 promised by the prior Abel Pacheco administration. But dock workers want amnesty for those who participated in this week’s strike, something the government is not prepared to offer.

Francisco Morales,the minister of Trabajo, has been negotiating for the government.

On the other side are representatives of the union of employees of the Junta de Administración Portuaria y de Desarrollo Econmico de la Vertiente del Atlántico, the government agency that runs the docks.

The main concern Thursday was to clear the way so that a cruise ship can arrive today. Officials said the local economy lost more than $100,000 when the captain of the Carnival Victory declined to dock with 3,000 passengers Wednesday because of the strike.

So far the cruise ships for today and Saturday still are scheduled to arrive. This means work for many in the province who depend on the tourist trade.

Security still is an issue. Police confronted young fire bombers and rioters Wednesday night and to a less extent Thursday. The youngsters, who were from some of the area’s poorer neighborhoods are being considered surrogates for the union members.

Police officials said they wondered how poor youngsters got their hands on so much gasoline and special nails they rigged to puncture tires of passing cars.

Dock workers have been conducting a slowdown since late September. The slowdown morphed into a full-scale strike earlier this week in concert with demonstrations by union workers in San José who were opposed to the free trade treaty with the United States.

Although not directly involved with the free trade treaty, the main concern of dock workers is that the Óscar Arias administration not lease the docks to a concessionaire. That was done at the Caldera docks on the Pacific, and the initial results are tempting.

The concessionaire, Sociedad Portuaria de Caldera S.A,, reported Thursday that the firm had already invested about $1 million in equipment at the docks. That includes a sophisticated computer system. The success or failure of the concession on the Pacific directly affects strikers at the Caribbean Limón and Moín docks because the Pacific venture is competition.

Officials like concessions because they can authorize major improvements without investing public money.

The Arias administration can take a hard line in Limón because a judge found that the strike is illegal. So union workers who participated can find themselves facing criminal charges. And they fear that the government would not hesitate to bring in strikebreakers if union workers do not go back on the job.