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Amnet says it is dropping its service in metro area
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By José Pablo Ramírez
Vindas
and the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Amnet, the cable television company, appears ready to surrender its
franchise in the Municipalidad de San José rather than put its
lines underground.
The company is distributing letters to subscribers saying that the firm
can no longer continue providing service due to technical reasons
related to putting the distribution lines underground.
The exact nature of the technical problems was not spelled out.
The letter bears the signature of Manuel Méndez Sánchez,
the firm's financial manager.
The letter did not give a date when the company, which has its
headquarters in La Sabana, will cut off service.
All this appears to be a surprise to the Compañía
Nacional de Fuerza y Luz, the electric company. According to Rocio
Pérez, a press spokesman for the electric firm, the cable
companies are working to comply with the requirement that the lines go
underground.
Fuerza y Luz embarked on a major project five years ago to bury the
metropolitan district's electric lines, and its employees and
contractors have done so. The problem is that cable and telephone
lines are carried on the same utility poles.
When the underground electric lines finally were
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installed,
mostly in the first half of 2005, additional outlets were
provided for telephone and cable service. However, the
phone company, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, would have
to run the lines alongside the electric cables and make the individual
home connections.
Amnet and Cable Tica, the other San José cable television firm,
would have to do likewise. Their lines also carry the Internet signals
for computer subscribers.
The Fuerza y Luz press spokesperson said that the power company has
been waiting for the other companies to put in their underground lines
but that there has been no official communications. And there is no
deadline for doing so although Fuerza y Luz would like to take down the
poles in 2009, she said.
The legal department of Fuerza y Luz is studying the matter, the press
spokesperson said.
Despite the letter, that was distributed Monday, no one at Amnet or
Cable Tica has been available for comment for two days.
Last July Millicom International Cellular S.A. said it agreed to
purchase Amnet for $510 million and said that Amnet has 350,000
corporate and residential accounts in Costa Rica, Honduras and El
Salvador. The firm said both companies would need about nine months to
complete the deal.
The decision to cut off service might be related to
that transaction. |
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Photos by Humberto Ballestero
of the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Securidad
Pública.
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Two U.S.
brothers with the last name of Siles are taken into custody.
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U.S. citizens held in raids involving drugs by Internet
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two brothers, both identified as U.S. citizens, were among six persons
detained Wednesday in police raids designed to eliminate a ring that
sold restricted drugs without a prescription to U.S. customers via the
Internet.
The brothers, who were detained when the Policía de
Control de Drogas raided their home in Pozos de Santa Ana, have
the last name of Siles, according to the Ministerio de
Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública.
Officials here said they were tipped off when U.S. authorities found an
illegal drug shipment in Miami in February.
Also arrested were two Costa Rican men, both 28, who were alleged to be
the leaders of the Internet pharmacy ring.
One, detained in San Pedro, was identified by the last names of Abarca
Coto. The second, detained in San Jose's Barrio San Cayetano, was
identified by the last names of García Sandoval.
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Two Colombians were detained in a raid in
Moravia. They were identified
as a woman, 54, with the last names of Echeverri Osorio, and a man,
identified by the last names of García Osorio, who is 56. Agents
said
the pair ran the company's lucrative Web site and made trips to
Guatemala to obtain the drugs that eventually were shipped to the
States.
Agents said that the two U.S. citizens had the job of delivering the
packages for shipment to various courier services.
The name of the company is Entracorp Radasi Internacional S.A.
Agents
said that the company distributed Lorazepam and methylphenidate
(known as Ritalin), Roche-2, Tafil, Oxa Forte, Duromine, Arcedol,
Stilnox and other pharmaceuticals. Some if not all of these products
are controlled by Costa Rican as well as U.S. law.
Agents here had been intercepting shipments since February.
Anti-drug police made arrests involving a similar Internet
operation last December. U.S. citizens were detained in that operation,
too.
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