RACSA Gets Next Year’s Phone Directory Contract

AFTER months of delays and complications regarding the 2006 telephone directories, the Comptroller General’s Office approved plans last week for Radiográfica Costarricense S.A. (RACSA) to produce them, according to the daily La Nación.

A contract between the state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), and RACSA, the state-owned Internet provider, allows the latter company to take over the production of the white (residential) and yellow (commercial) pages.

RACSA will select a business to print the directories and will invest $5 million in the project.

The process of collecting information from businesses to list in the yellow pages will begin in January, RACSA announced.

The white pages are scheduled to come out in March or April of next year and the yellow pages in June or July.

In the past, ICE contracted Verizon Information Services Costa Rica L.L.C. to publish the guides, but ICE terminated the agreement earlier this year after a contract dispute over problems with this year’s guides (TT, Aug. 5). To compensate for the problems, ICE made all calls to the 113 national telephone directory service free for the rest of 2005.