We call them cops... Army? Yeah right... Nicaragua and Panama (Our neighbours) have tanks, bazookas and aircraft, we have at least 9mm caliber guns and shields for our cops...
I was born in Costa Rica and live there (here, indeed) since then... The problem in general is this, there is a big company called the Costarican Electricity Institute (ICE in spanish), it is run by the government and some of their achievments is that thanks to their founders, this was the sencond country in the world with electricity (One-two years later of New York's street lamps innaguration).
That company holds all the permissions to grant electricity, phone and internet access, and in fact, one of the biggest income is that of telephony, especially international calls.
What they are seeking is to be the only provider of VoIP, not to make it illegal at all, but provide the service and ban or send to jail any company that tries to use internet to send voice packets without a contrat with them, in that case even using Skype can cost you a few days at a prison, the only way to use VoIP is to ask them for a service, yet unavailable, and who knows for how long.
The same has happened with what they call "Advanced Internet" (Basically, ADSL access), they have some sort of pilot program with a few thousan d connections, but the real service will start later this year, whereas in other contries I had seen that optic fiber is beign installed around...
As a summary, we are giving one step ahead and two back in every bureocratic decision, mostly thanks to our government corruption (Heck, we have two former presidents in jail... and precisely for corruption among cellular phone providers contracts and "awards" upon their selection).
The situation is not as nice as the other big comment about Costa Rica, yes, we have not had any civil war or battle with our next countries in about fifty seven years, but there's a lot of delinquence, our streets suck (No more than a hundred meters without a volcanic crater in middle of the street).
But in the pretty hand, we are becoming a sort of "Sillicon Tropical Rainforest", there is an Intel facility at a few minutes from my home, Sun is planning to come here, and there's a lot of other companies that open operation centers around, yes, Microsoft is one of them, and recently donated a full equipped lab to my college, ITCR, before that, the ITCR was a loyal FOSS advocate...:'(
Also there are a lot of natural and beatiful places from beaches to volcanoes, and rain forests in between, we have no army (Remember "Fahrenheit 9/11"?), and the most important thing for the 99% of the population is to have a nice ringtone and that the Costa Rica soccer team get to the World Cup... So, it's very easy for an outsider with great ideas to come here, build a business and get profit as almost no "tico" (As we call ourselves) want to complicate it's live so much just to get a fancy phone... So good luck foreign investors, and you are welcome!!!
Once upon a time, a friend ask me to pick her at the airport, here in Costa Rica there is one large Airport in Alajuela (Near the capitol, San Jose), and there, all the TVs that show the arrivals and departures has a BSOD on them...
The plane take about a half an hour to arrive, and the BSOD was there before I came, and after I leave...:S
Slashdot Mirror
We call them cops... Army? Yeah right... Nicaragua and Panama (Our neighbours) have tanks, bazookas and aircraft, we have at least 9mm caliber guns and shields for our cops...
I was born in Costa Rica and live there (here, indeed) since then... The problem in general is this, there is a big company called the Costarican Electricity Institute (ICE in spanish), it is run by the government and some of their achievments is that thanks to their founders, this was the sencond country in the world with electricity (One-two years later of New York's street lamps innaguration).
:'(
That company holds all the permissions to grant electricity, phone and internet access, and in fact, one of the biggest income is that of telephony, especially international calls.
What they are seeking is to be the only provider of VoIP, not to make it illegal at all, but provide the service and ban or send to jail any company that tries to use internet to send voice packets without a contrat with them, in that case even using Skype can cost you a few days at a prison, the only way to use VoIP is to ask them for a service, yet unavailable, and who knows for how long.
The same has happened with what they call "Advanced Internet" (Basically, ADSL access), they have some sort of pilot program with a few thousan d connections, but the real service will start later this year, whereas in other contries I had seen that optic fiber is beign installed around...
As a summary, we are giving one step ahead and two back in every bureocratic decision, mostly thanks to our government corruption (Heck, we have two former presidents in jail... and precisely for corruption among cellular phone providers contracts and "awards" upon their selection).
The situation is not as nice as the other big comment about Costa Rica, yes, we have not had any civil war or battle with our next countries in about fifty seven years, but there's a lot of delinquence, our streets suck (No more than a hundred meters without a volcanic crater in middle of the street).
But in the pretty hand, we are becoming a sort of "Sillicon Tropical Rainforest", there is an Intel facility at a few minutes from my home, Sun is planning to come here, and there's a lot of other companies that open operation centers around, yes, Microsoft is one of them, and recently donated a full equipped lab to my college, ITCR, before that, the ITCR was a loyal FOSS advocate...
Also there are a lot of natural and beatiful places from beaches to volcanoes, and rain forests in between, we have no army (Remember "Fahrenheit 9/11"?), and the most important thing for the 99% of the population is to have a nice ringtone and that the Costa Rica soccer team get to the World Cup... So, it's very easy for an outsider with great ideas to come here, build a business and get profit as almost no "tico" (As we call ourselves) want to complicate it's live so much just to get a fancy phone... So good luck foreign investors, and you are welcome!!!
Once upon a time, a friend ask me to pick her at the airport, here in Costa Rica there is one large Airport in Alajuela (Near the capitol, San Jose), and there, all the TVs that show the arrivals and departures has a BSOD on them...
:S
The plane take about a half an hour to arrive, and the BSOD was there before I came, and after I leave...