Costa Rican State Telecom Under Fire for Limiting Internet Speeds

Share this article
Click image to enlarge

If you have a post-paid mobile Internet plan with the Costa Rican Electric Institute (ICE), you may want to dig out your contract.

Starting this month, all post-paid mobile Internet plan holders will have their Internet speeds docked down to the slowest speed (128 kps) if they exceed the maximum download amount stipulated in their plan. This lower speed, if a user exceeds their quota, will apply for the remainder of the month, and then bump back up to the plan’s normal speed the following month, said the Superintendence of Telecommunications (Sutel).

This measure, which ICE claims is “temporary,” has been severely criticized by the Costa Rican Ombudsman’s office (Defensoría de los Habitantes) who in a letter to Sutel on Monday, February 27 demanded the measure be immediately revoked. Sutel has eight days to respond to the Ombud’s office request.

Sutel, in an official response to the new “Uso Justo” or “Fair Usage” policy said the measure is designed to “ensure fair treatment of all users,” and to “regulate the extraordinary consumption of data download with the aim of avoiding congestion of networks and thus avoid that the quality of the service for other users is affected.”

The regulatory agency approved the regulation (RCS-063-2014) on April 2, 2014, which authorized in a “temporary form, the application of conditions of fair use in contracts of services of access to mobile Internet.”

The agency explained that, “Giving fair access to the network to all users is not easy. Network capacity and resources are limited and the utilization of bandwidth and traffic flows are highly variable for different applications and services.”

The Ombud’s office, in their letter to Manuel Emilio Ruíz Gutiérrez, President of Sutel’s board, says that Sutel is contradicting its own internal directive in 2014 (2042-SUTEL-DGC-2014) which mandated the agency “…increase the capacity of its networks to reduce the levels of congestion as much as possible, so that the speeds offered in plans can be available even during peak usage times.”

The Sutel board recommended in 2014 a specific series of technical steps be taken, which Montserrat Solano Carboni, the National Ombud notes, were, by Sutel’s own admission in a report published on February 15 this year, only “considered” by Sutel, but not implemented.

This lack of steps taken to increase network capacity, and the implementation of a measure that will potentially restrict thousands of people’s access to information through constitutes a breach of human rights, according to the Ombudsman’s office.

Solano cites the declaration by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011 which states that because the Internet is a tool that favors growth and social progress, it is considered a human right.

The agency should instead seek to find ways to address the excessively high usage rates that have been documented to exist among a small number of users, namely hotels, Internet cafés and other similar businesses, said the Ombud, as well as implement other measures already identified by Sutel’s quality control department.

In addition, the Ombud’s office says Sutel has failed to demonstrate whether the “Fair Usage” policy is actually aiding in resolving the Internet speed problem it claims to be remedying.

Sutel said that the implementation of this measure “does not establish a total limitation of the mobile Internet service, but a decrease in contracted speed. However, the service continues to be provide in an unlimited way.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Comments

Popular Content