Q COSTA RICA – If you are ‘postpay’ customer of Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad’s (ICE) internet cellular service prepared to be punished for excessive use. The state telecom, operating under the Kölbi brand, plans to apply its “fair use” policy to all postpaid customers starting on March 1.
The decision, according to ICE, is in compliances with a resolution of the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL) – telecommunications regulator, “which facilitates equity in accessing mobile network resources.”
Basically, starting on March 1, Kölbi postpay customers who exceed the permitted download limit will see their connection drop to avoid ‘excessive consumption’ by certain users that affect the quality of the service of others.
As ICE explains, on March 1, each postpaid mobile internet plan will be assigned a “transfer capacity” – the limit on the upload and download of data according to the contracted speed during the monthly billing period.
“Postpay Kölbi customers will always be able to surf the net, and once this capacity is exceeded, they will continue to enjoy Internet service with a connection speed of up to 128 kbps at no additional cost. The original capacity and speed will be restored by restarting the billing period according to the contracted plan,” ICE said in a statement.
The change is to “sanction abuse” of data downloads. ICE says that each customer will receive a notification, via text message, when the consumption reached 80% or 100% of the assigned data transfer.
ICE implemented such a policy back in 2014, but after a few months scrapped it.
