June is here, and so, finally, are the 2007 phone books.
The Red Cross began delivering the tomes this month in the San José area, and officials say distribution will be complete before the month is up.
The million or so phonebooks, however, will be good only for about seven months. The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), which manages Costa Rica’s staterun telecommunications monopoly, chalked up the delayed release to a contract spat with Verizon in 2005.
Verizon, who had been doing the directory for years, printed a separate phonebook that year for each region of the country – without ICE’s authorization (TT, Jan. 21, 2005). That caused ICE to take legal action against Verizon, and the company backed out and left the country.
ICE subsidiary Radiográfica Costarricense S.A. (RACSA), the state owned Internet provider, has since been put in charge of printing the phonebooks.
In 2006, RACSA contracted the work out to Editorial Trejos Hermanos, a local printing company that didn’t have the guide ready until August.
This year, the work went to Danaranjo Group, a Colombian company. Danaranjo holds the contract for the next three years, and ICE representatives said they expect the 2008 book to come out on time.
Each edition of the new phonebook includes yellow and white pages organized by province. Extra phone books will also be available in prominent locations in each community, ICE representatives said.
