Alcatel wins $149 m Costa Rican contract

PARIS: French telecom equipment maker Alcatel said on Monday it had signed a

contract worth $149 million with Costa Rican operator ICE to build the country's

first GSM 1800/GPRS mobile phone network.

Alcatel said in a statement that the new mobile network would be able to

support up to 400,000 lines, opening up the possibility of mobile data

communications, high-speed Internet and mobile commerce in the small central

American nation.

The network should enable mobile transmission speeds of 115 kilobits per

second, twice as fast as the country's modems. "Thanks to our end-to-end

GPRS solution, ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) will be able to

migrate naturally towards 3G (mobile Internet services)," Alcatel said.

Costa Rica, situated between Panama and Nicaragua, has a population of around

four million people. Though roughly a fifth live in poverty, it is seen as one

of the region's most prosperous and stable economies.