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I saw a similar article in AM Costa Rica, but it wasn’t Congress who deregulated the telecoms — it was Arias. Who knows what terrible change that will wrought!
Deregulation has an up and down side. The up side is we will have many more choices, higher quality and faster speeds. The down side is that it will cost more. The break up of Bell telephone in the US, thanks in lage part to Ted Kennedy, is a prime example.
I heard what happened in Nicaragua too after CAFTA. Cheap cell phone rates jumped to $50 a month. If that happens in Costa Rica, I’m going to use smoke signals. I have no problem at all with ICE’s service and would prefer a gov’t monopolized system rather than having the carpet baggers and crooks offering us their wares.
Deregulation of phone service in the U.S. and Costa Rica
You had better LOOK at your telephone bill and then look BACK in time. Our “basic” service before taxes is about $12 per month. Taxes (Federal, state, local) more than double the base rate (total $28.50 without long distance service). We paid only $14/month for basic service in the 1960’s including taxes! $9 for the service and $5 in taxes. If you calculate in the value of the dollar the current base rate is a fraction of what it was in the 1960’s. Blame the tax man, no the tellco.
Under the Bell System long distance calls cost a small fortune and were considered a real extravagance. You only made a long distance call if someone died. Depending on the distance and time of day you could pay over $1/minute. International calls were $5 to $8/minute. Today, for about the same cost as our 1960’s base rate in inflated dollars (over 10x) we can have as many phones in our house as we want and make unlimited long distance anywhere in the U.S. AND Canada! On my cell phone I have an international plan that costs $5/month and I can call Costa Rica for $0.15/minute and New Zealand for 0.05/minute. I can travel in most of Central America (EXCEPT Costa Rica) and use that same cell phone to call home OR other countries.
Today our “unlimited long distance” phone costs about $120/month and a big part of that is taxes. Several years ago my old Bell System plan cost me over $250/month due to business long distance and occasionally ran $350/month. ONE 30 minute phone call to New Zealand cost me $270 and a one minute FAX to Turkey $15! Now our 3 cell phones, seperate ground line and high speed internet on a different company cost about what my old single line and long distance cost. AND I can call friends anywhere in the world at a reasonable affordable cost. We could do a LOT better by switching to a single company and using Skype for international calls.
In the U.S. phone costs have dropped tremendously since the break up of Ma-Bell and services have leaped forward technologically. While Ma-Bell was a tech company she would not have provided the services we have today. THAT is the result of competition.
THE DOWN SIDE: The Bell System had excellent public pay phone service. They were everywhere including along the Interstate Highways. Today that has virtually disappeared and you can end up paying several dollars a minute or more to make long distance phone calls from the few that exist.
The Bell System had big DURABLE ergonomic phones. I hate the poor design of the available cheap modern phones. On the Bell system they would wire your house for free BUT extra lines cost extra to install and to operate. You did not own the equipment and Ma-Bell took care of it forever. However, today you can by ten phones for what one of those durable Bell System phones would cost.
AND for a brief period the lack of regulation let scammers running billing houses hijack your account and the rate you paid. But THAT was sorted out.
In general, the system in the U.S is better. However, rural markets still do not get the same choices in services as cities.
IN COSTA RICA the public pay telephone system is mostly non-functional. In most of rural CR the pay phones do not work and individual phones may not have worked for many months. This is a failure of the government monopoly phone system.
The problem IS that the government should own parts of the system such as the wires and towers and lease those to service providers. OR they should have planners and regulations that make sure that rural areas are served as well as the city. Otherwise with deregulation there will be GREAT services in San Jose and almost nothing or less than there is now in the small rural towns.
One huge advantage is that folks that want direct satellite service from major providers will be able to do so legally. And oh, yeah. . . my Verizon cell phone that works in most of Central America and the Caribbean might have a chance in CR.
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