3G Sales Lukewarm, No Appointment Necessary Beginning This Week
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009The sales of the 3G cellular network have been slow, with less than 11.000 lines sold in the first week of its introduction, of which 6.000 were customers moving from the TDMA service. The last time ICE introduced new cellular lines it sold its maximum 5.000 lines per day.
So, what is the difference this time?
Simple, new subscribers of the 3G service must have a 3G phone. And that is wherein lies the problem, 3G phones are expensive and few options are available in Costa Rica’s retail market.
Few of the customers who subscribed to the 3G already had their own phones, while the majority purchasing 3G units from ICE itself, as the institution makes changes to become more user friendly and offering more services.
However, that hasn’t worked so well, for the first week at least.
Although ICE is offering 3G cellular phones from Nokia, Motorola and ZTE, only ZTE phones where available by the end of the week, as most customers decided to choose Nokia and Motorola, depleting ICE’s inventory.
Jaime Palermo, head of ICE’s Dirección de Servicio al Cliente (customer service) said that the sales of the phones went well, as they are new to the market and more services than a GSM phone.
Palermo added than in time ICE will also be offering 3G phones from Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung and Huawei (the Chinese company that installed the 3G network).
Customers who do not have a 3G phone and cannot afford the one-time cost at a retail store, can opt for one of several ICE plans that include the phone and airtime with the cost spread out over 12 and 18 months.
For instance, ICE’s Plan Kolbi* offers customers 150 minutes of call time, 350 minutes of SMS and 10 minutes of MMS for ¢30.363 monthly for a Nokia 5800 or ¢31.519 for a Nokia E71. Plan Kolbi 500 offers 500 minutes of call time, 1500 minutes of SMS and 25 of MMS for ¢40.844 and ¢42.000 monthly for the same phones. Both plans are based on 12 months.
For those who want even more use, Plan Kolbi Ejecutivo offers 1.000 minutes of call time, 500 minutes of SMS and 30 minutes of MMS for ¢57.118 monthly for the Nokia 5800 and ¢57.865 for the Nokia e71 on a 18 month basis.
Only the Ejecutivo plan offers internet included. With all the other plans, customers have to subscribe to internet seperately, which varies in costs depending on connections speeds of between 128Kb to 4096Kb.
Customers who have their own equipment can purchase the KPlan Kolbi which offers 60 minutes of call time, 30 minutes of SMS and 0 minutes of MMS for ¢2.900 per month. This plan is the ICE basic plan it offers to all other GSM and TDMA customers.
With all this, there is one caveat, although the basic cost of the Kolbi plan is inexpensive, use of the MMS (multimedia) and internet can rack up a hefty monthly bill.
ICE does not yet have the costs for the MMS or internet connection, nor is it making it available just yet. ICE says the MMS and wide band internet will be available in January and costs could be similar to ICE’s Acelera plans which ranges from us$10 to us$91 monthly, depending on the connection speed.
Also, beginning this week, new customers do not have to have a previous appointment. Customers can walk in to any ICE agency, with their 3G cellular telephone, and get connected.
Mexican drug gangs are increasingly using Costa Rica as a pick-up point for South American cocaine headed north and the problem is likely to get worse, President Oscar Arias said on Monday.
