by Rod Hughes

The Costa Rican Electrical Institute (ICE), the telecommunications monopoly, has blocked an ambitious $300 million plan by its subsidiary, RACSA, to be competitive in the open communications market by investing in 360,000 fiber optic broadband connections.

The newspaper La Nacion reported today that ICE executive president Pedro Pablo Quiros has no intention of allowing RACSA to compete with its parent. RACSA needs no fiber optic network of its own, Quiros said. ICE has a much more limited fiber optic network (4 megabips as contrasted with the 20 megabips envisioned by RACSA’s plan) and Quiros said the subsidiary’s idea would “duplicate” its services.

The plans recognise that sooner or later the telecommunications market will be opened in the wake of the referendum passage of the CAFTA free trade treaty with the United States. A bill to do just this is sitting in the Leglislative Assembly, one of the original 13 aimed at bringing Costa Rican practices into coordination with the provisions of the treaty.

But Quiros envisions that RACSA will dedicate itself to such services as a data bank for agriculture, for medicine, for lawyers and digital government services. In fact, ICE is contemplating the transfer of 200,000 RACSA customers to its own services, Quiros added.

RACSA’s employees are not taking the parent company’s decision lying down—200 of RACSA’s 300 employees signed a petition sent to ICE in protest. But Quiros was adamant, telling RACSA employees with most un-Costa Rican directness, “This isn’t a country club, this is a company.”