Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad

Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
Company type	Public
Industry	Electricity, telecommunication
Founded	San José, Costa Rica (April 8, 1949)
Headquarters	San José, Costa Rica
Key people	Teófilo de la Torre (Chief executive officer)
Services	Electrical grid; Mobile telephony; Internet;
Revenue	$ 1,844 million
Website	link

Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (English: Costa Rican Institute of Electricity) (ICE) is the Costa Rican government-run electricity and telecommunications services provider. Together with the Radiographic Costarricense SA (RACSA) and Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL), they form the ICE Group.

History

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, and the main opposition, National Liberation Party, agreed to change the institution. Meanwhile, the citizen opposition reached 274 protests in 14 days.^[1]

Following the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement, the telecommunication market was opened to private companies. Since 2011, América Móvil through Claro Americas and Telefónica through Movistar, are competing against ICE in the Costa Rican mobile market.^[2]^[3]

In 2021, ICE Group generated an annual operating income of around $2.194 billion.^[4]

References

^ Gangas, P; Retana, J (2006). "Ciudadanos críticos: Las movilizaciones contra el "Combo ICE" en Costa Rica" [Critical Citizens: Demonstrations against "Combo ICE" in Costa Rica]. América Latina Hoy (in Spanish). No. 42. pp. 93–108.
^ Agüero, Mercedes R. (6 November 2011). "Claro rompe monopolio celular al activar sus primeras líneas" [Claro breaks mobile telephony monopoly by activating its first line]. La Nación (in Spanish). Archived from the original on May 24, 2012.
^ Agüero, Mercedes R. (31 October 2011). "Movistar no logró abrir todas sus tiendas en primer día de ventas" [Movistar failed to open all its stores in its first day of sales]. La Nación (in Spanish). Archived from the original on December 14, 2011.
^ Memoria ICE 2021 (in Spanish) Retrieved 29 March 2023