Digicel Interested in Costa Rican Mobile License

Caribbean mobile operator Digicel is planning to bid for a mobile operator license in Costa Rica when the licenses are sold next year.

Thee tender for the licenses will be launched in September, with the first mobile license to be awarded between March and April 2010.

Costa Rica "is an ideal market for us [...] we plan to invest heavily in the future to develop a first-class network", Colm Delves, Digicel group CEO told Inside Costa Rica.

Delves also said that finding money to invest should not be a problem for Digicel.

"We are well capitalized, but I am confident that we can raise cash if needed, particularly in a place like Costa Rica", he added.

Currently there is just the one mobile network operator in the country, Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). Figures from the Mobile World notes that the operator ended Q1 '09 with an estimated 3 million subscribers. The population penetration level is 71%.