Costa Rica's Racsa Close To Breaking Away From ICE

Costa Rica's Racsa Close To Breaking Away From ICE
 
 The possibility of the Radiográfica Costarricense S.A. (Racsa) breaking away from ICE, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, may be finally close. Presidenta Laura Chinchilla called a a meeting of representatives of both companies for next week.
 
 Racsa has been and continues to be an arm of ICE, providing internet services with more than 100.000 customers. Racsa does not have any direction over its company since ICE board of directors own 100% of the company's shares.
 
 With the existence of Racsa, ICE is competing with itself. Ice offers internet services, although it restricts its activity to ADSL and mobile internet. Racsa offers dial up internet and in partnership with cable companies, cable internet.
 
 A decade ago internet service in Costa Rica was only available through Racsa, as ICE concentrated on telephone communications and energy.
 
 In the decade and with the growth in internet demand and capacity, Racsa has grown. Recently the ICE owned company announced an investment plan of $360 million US dollars to improve its internet network. They offer high speed connections at low prices and will soon be breaking into the "virtual cellular network" market.
 If Racsa's plans for the Virtual Cellular Network become a reality, it would make it a clear competitor to ICE.
 
 A Virtual Cellular Network allows many terminals to access a fixed communication infrastructure, using radio communication. A VCN does not use a conventional cellular frequency re-use concept. In a VCN, each terminal sends packets using the entire system bandwidth while any nearby port can pick up the signal. Then, the ports relay the packets to the port server (PS) over a fixed (wired) network.
 
 Ports can be simple radio receivers as they do not have to support the same functionality as conventional cellular base stations. The performance is investigated in terms of probability of capture, throughput and delay. Despite its simplicity this network has a larger user capacity than conventional cellular reuse patterns.