IL Postcard

High-Speed Internet Expansion in Costa Rica is Moving at Snail's Pace

Date: 06/12/2007

While major tourism and investment destinations like Jacó, Tamarindo and Playas del Coco have been unable to install a new cable-modem Internet connection for months, a major project meant to expand high-speed internet in Costa Rica is moving at a pace anything but high speed.

The project, called "Border to Border," aims to install 680 miles of fiber-optic cable across the country, and is supposed to be finished by October. However, the contractor carrying out the project, an Israeli firm called ECI Telecom, has only laid 66 miles of cable, having received the order to begin the project in March of 2006.

At the current pace, the project will not be finished for nearly five years.

The $59 million dollar project, once finished, is expected to become the backbone for Costa Rica's telecommunications infrastructure, increasing bandwidth for even basic communications such as cell phones and fixed home telephone lines.

The state-run Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE), which has a monopoly over the telecommunications sector, has criticized the contractor repeatedly, and blames the contractor for the delays. ICE's Executive President Pablo Quirós said a "lack of experience" has slowed the firm's progress.

ECI Telecom is the third company to have won the bid for the project since it was first proposed in 2001. The French company Alcatel was awarded the contract in December of 2002 for $43.7 million, but that contract was annulled by the Comptroller General's Office in March of 2003. Mobile-phone giant Ericsson took over the bid in March of 2004 for $65 million, but that contract was also annulled in July of 2004. ECI was awarded the project in September of 2004, and the Comptroller General authorized its start in December of 2005.

Your Latin America Insider,

Suzan Haskins
for International Living

P.S. If you'd like to learn more about Costa Rica, consider joining us for our first International Living Live and Prosper in Costa Rica seminar, to be held there in November. If you'd like to be first on the list to receive details once they are finalized, e-mail Events@InternationalLiving.com