The Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (CCCR) proposed itself as a spokesperson for the needs for economic reactivation in that country and for the promotion of 5G, considering that this technology will be the enabler of advances in various sectors of the economy.
“Today we have the whole world in our hands, we can do anything: international and national transactions on electronic commerce platforms, acquire goods and services and carry out banking transactions such as giving or receiving payments. As the change is gradual, we do not feel it but everything has changed”, assures Alonso Elizondo Bolaños, executive director of the CCCR, as published by local media.
In this context, the head of the chamber recalled the progress made by the mobile industry in just a decade, a time that it took the market to massify a product that was considered luxurious. “At that time, our neighbors in Central America had advances that we Ticos envied. Today it is very clear that, as the saying goes, the mother of efficiency is competition”, he said.
Moving towards fifth generation mobile networks
And along the same lines, he argued that the country “requires” to move towards fifth generation mobile networks and valued this advance as “a necessity.” “Today, someone with a phone can be anywhere in the country following the virtual meeting of work, study or planning activities in WhatsApp groups,” he said and declared that “that is the future but I really regret that who should be In front of this innovation, it is not the Government that, in reality, does nothing and has followed the game of ICE (N.deR: Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad). However, there is no doubt that 5G will be a stronger tool for education, work and business”.
The voice of Elizondo Bolaños was joined by Maryleana Méndez Jiménez, Secretary General of the Inter-American Association of Telecommunications Companies (Asiet) and former director of the Superintendency of Telecommunications (Sutel) between 2009 and 2017, who warned that the incorporation of 5G will also imply a regulatory change. “We should start to reflect on what kind of regulations should be applied in a market as evolved as ours; we are going to a more digitized economy”, he said and proposed that “we should give 5G a productive vocation for Costa Rica”.
