Costa Rica News – CAFTA was supposed to help open the markets for competition in Costa Rica in many industries. The ruling on a court case regarding 4G in Costa Rica might be contrary to this open market agreement.
The “Tribunal Contencioso” administrative court gave the go-ahead to ICE, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute, to market its new 4G, fourth generation, cellular network services.
The same court rejected an initiative by Movistar, on Friday. The ruling denied a judgement that was made in their favor on October 30th, when they asked that ICE be prevented from exploiting the 2,600 Mhz band, until the court could resolve the issue.
Movistar had accused ICE of monopolizing the spectrum. The decision of the court seems good in the short term because it makes 4G available to us, but will it be good for the consumer in the long run?
The spokesman for ICE, Elbert Duran, boasted that “This gives us the green light to market with vigor, because many customers are waiting for the service.” On the other hand, Matthias Senoran, from Movistar, remains adamant in the idea that the 2,600 Mhz band should be revised in such a way to prevent the opportunity for monopolization.
He claims, “This is a topic of interest to users, and it is important that more than one operator be able to access the spectrum so that there are greater possibilities in the variety of services.”
