Edificio del Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad

Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad ( en, Costa Rican Institute of Electricity) (ICE) is the

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

n government-run

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

and

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s services provider. Together with the Radiographic Costarricense SA (RACSA) and Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL), they form the ICE Group. ICE was founded on 8 April 1949 by Decree-Law No. 449, after the Costa Rican Civil War of 1948, in order to solve the problems of power shortages that occurred in Costa Rica in the 1940s. Since 1963, ICE provides telecommunications services throughout the country. The attempts to reform ICE throughout a set of laws in the years 1999 and 2000 generated a great social mobilization, including the 2000 Costa Rican protests. The ruling party at that time, the

Social Christian Unity Party The Social Christian Unity Party ( es, Partido Unidad Social Cristiana) is a centre-right political party in Costa Rica. PUSC considers itself a Christian-democratic party and, as such, is a member of the Christian Democrat Organization of Ameri ...

, and the main opposition, National Liberation Party, agreed to change the institution. Meanwhile, the citizen opposition reached 274 protests in 14 days. Following the

Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement :''Note: Within this article, "CAFTA" refers to the agreement as it stood before January 2004, and "CAFTA-DR" is used after that.'' The Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR; Spanish: ''Tratado de Libre ...

, the telecommunication market was opened to private companies. Since 2011,

América Móvil América Móvil is a Mexican telecommunications corporation headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the 7th largest mobile network operator in terms of equity subscribers and one of the largest corporations in the world. América Móvil is a ...

through

Claro Americas Claro Company is a Mexican company part of América Móvil, a Mexican telecom group. Claro serves clients in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Par ...

and

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...

through

Movistar Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, mobile services, and pay television (Movistar+) in Spain. Movistar is ...

, are competing against ICE in the Costa Rican mobile market. In 2021, ICE Group generated an annual operating income of around $2.194 billion. https://www.grupoice.com/wps/wcm/connect/19487b17-e008-4c6a-afe3-b5d8015bbbee/Memoria+ICE+2021.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-19487b17-e008-4c6a-afe3-b5d8015bbbee-o6SDuKe

References

External links

* (in Spanish) Telecommunications companies established in 1949 Electric power companies of Costa Rica Telecommunications companies of Costa Rica Public utilities established in 1949 1949 establishments in Costa Rica {{telecom-company-stub