Huawei Finally Wins Costa Rican 3G Contract

Huawei has won a US$235 million contract to build a 3G network in Costa Rica, according to local media. Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) deputy manager Claudio Bermudez said the 3G network should be operational throughout the Central American nation by the end of 2009.

ICE is currently the monopoly mobile operator in the country - although moves to liberalise the market was passed into law last year.

Last August, ICE had decided not to accept a sole bid from China's Huawei for the supply of a 3G network - and will tried to retender the contract. The company had come under political pressure from the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias to reject the contract.

Both Nokia and ZTE withdrew from the original tender process and Huawei's own bid was roughly double the estimate that ICE had proposed. ICE had expected to spend around US$225 million on the 3G upgrade - but Huawei tendered a contract costing nearly US$583 million for 1.5 million 3G lines.

The new 3G contract calls for network capacity for 935,000 3G lines.

The Mobile World subscriber database estimates that ICE ended the 3rd quarter of last year with some 2.75 million subscribers, including some 46,000 customers on legacy AMPS and TDMA networks.

Alvarion recently won a WiMAX tender from ICE worth US$6 million covering San Jose and the rural areas of Limon.

Posted to the site on 13th January 2009