Telecommunications

A Civil and Administrative Tribunal ordered the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) to pay ₡500,000 ($945) to two of its customers for a lack of signal that prevented them from seeking help after a traffic accident three years ago. The plaintiffs say the amount awarded is far too little.

National Restoration Party lawmaker Fabricio Alvarado this week launched a social media campaign asking mobile phone users to post a message with the hashtag #modoavioncr every time they have problems making a call, sending an SMS or using mobile Internet.

Amid a national debate over a proposed change in mobile Internet rates, a study released this week shows that rate plans from state-owned carrier Kölbi, part of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), are generally less expensive than competing plans with similar features.

To help us prepare for the day, Costa Rica’s National Metereological Institute (IMN) recently released its own app - a valiant effort to interpret the local troposphere for everyday people, but too full of flaws and bugs to be a worthy option.

When Mario López Estrada was head of Guatemala's state telecommunications monopoly in the 1980s, making a phone call in the war-ravaged Central American nation was a hopeless endeavor. Almost three decades later, Guatemala ranks No. 1 globally in mobile network coverage, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.

The Telecommunications Superintendency (SUTEL) on July 1 will hold a public hearing to propose a change in the way carriers charge for mobile Internet services. But angry customers are getting ready to fight back.

More than 80 percent of smartphones in the country have Internet connections above 1 Mbps, and users are overwhelmingly satisfied with their current carriers.