During the last century, the earth has faced some good inventions that have changed its course: the telephone and also the internet. Both were received with similar lack of trust, but slowly, they managed to get people’s attention and admiration. After many years of continuos research, the technologies have brought us where we are today. Everything seems possible having a computer as well as an web connection: Video conferencing, watching movies and listening to music, publishing your thoughts and concepts for free. In Costa Rica, the largest communications operators are RACSA, Amnet Costa Rica and of course ICE Costa Rica Internet. American Data Networks has its own origins in Costa Rica also it was meant to be a solution for world’s necessity of high capacity transmission of messages. They offer added value and services to all those companies with operations with high telecommunications requirements in Costa Rica. By doing this, they permit fast expansion of the internet. The official mission of Amnet Costa Rica is function as the best option in telecommunication services. They intend to offer constantly innovation in technology and to improve the data transfer. The internet is a faster, more efficient and secure place. Trying to accomplish this mission, Amnet Costa Rica has become a leader in the market of telecommunications by focussing on two sides: the clients and also the top quality standards. This strategy makes it well known in the entire world.
In Latin America, Costa Rica has the next to the highest internet penetration, after Chile. Of course this country includes a modern telecom infrastructure, it’s still the least liberalised telecom market in the region. As we allready mentioned, ICE Costa Rica internet (ICE - Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) and its subsidiary RACSA have the absolute power. Both fixed-line and mobile telephony, internet and all data communications are supplied by them. The only real exception may be the pay TV. Nowadays, the recent changes from the today’s technology have influenced that old situation. When the monopol of ICE Costa Rica internet worked perfectly in the past, now, it’s leading to big problems for its users. For instance, in December 2004, mobile lines ran dry completely.
Recently, VoIP services/ Servicios VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is one of the newest technologies on the planet that threatens ICE’s hegemony. This new gadget is converting the voice signal right into a digital signal and transmit it to the internet connection. The most important advantages of VoIP calls would be the following: big savings on call rates, flexibility and best customer support. Too, it has great additional features for example: call forwarding to a specific number, send or call directly to voicemail, block the calling party number and voice mail, that is sent to the email inbox being an attachment. The bad parts are concerning the service quality which depends on problems in power supply, Online connections and also the security - VoIP is susceptible to worms, viruses and hacking. Taking into consideration all the benefits and all sorts of the disadvantages, we came to the coclusion this revolutionary technology will replace the traditional phone systems completely.