A Costa Rican mayor has approached the telecoms regulator, Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel) with a proposal by which his municipality will tax telecom operators to erect and maintain their radio towers, according to local reports.
If the…
A Costa Rican mayor has approached the telecoms regulator, Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel) with a proposal by which his municipality will tax telecom operators to erect and maintain their radio towers, according to local reports.
If the proposal by the official, the mayor of Montes de Oca, is taken up, other municipalities could follow suit. This means any town or city could charge state-owned incumbent Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) and new entrants for using locations falling into their municipalities. Under the proposal, mobile operators would pay licence fees as well as building permits to erect the towers.
Sutel, which will later this month begin the bidding process for three new entrants to challenge ICE’s monopoly, will make any decision on whether municipalities can apply these charges.
