The Costa Rica News (TCRN) – Internet via fiber optics to the home (FTTH) will be knocking on the doors of Costa Ricans next year, to provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps, although they must overcome the challenge of price and demand to achieve greater penetration.
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) is planning to offer this service by the middle of next year, with approximately 150,000 new connections.
“As for the price, it’s subject to the commercial capabilities when we launch,” said Adolfo Arias, head of ICE’s infrastructure division.
CableTica is in the design phase of FTTH for “specific projects”, but has no plans of extending the service. So far they have only been approaching the housing sector (including developments, residential and condominium towers) with the option to use fiber optics.
For now the company offers an Internet service with DOCSIS 3.0 technology that allows speeds up to 100 Mbps and whose benefits are similar to FTTH, such as streaming video at 4K.
“In the future we could take our service up to 200 Mbps,” said José Gutiérrez Salazar from CableTica.
The scope of FTTH services, and lowering their prices depends on increased competition and market maturity.
Improving this situation is not a technological issue. “It’s not a technical problem. Today’s networks are underutilized,” said Gilles Maury, Senior Manager of Deloitte Consulting.
The change has come from the demand for remote monitoring, video calls, gaming and HDTV, all of which require high-speed connections. (El Financiero)
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose, Costa Rica
