The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) has announced that as of Saturday it will consolidate all GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) cell phones into one network. The move will dissolve the contract with the French firm Alcatel and make Sweden's Ericsson the sole network provider for all GSM phones.

According to ICE, uniting the networks will improve service for the 400,000 customers that currently use Alcatel. Of the 1.8 million GSM phone users in Costa Rica, 1.4 million receive service through Ericsson. The consolidation of the two providers will synchronize the radio towers that provide the GSM signal. Currently, service for Ericsson users is provided by 317 radio towers. With the acquisition of the Alcatel towers, there will now be 459 towers dedicated to GSM service in a single network. ICE said they will continue to add to the number of radio towers, and that by the first quarter of 2010 there will be 753 towers around Costa Rica.

“This unification will begin with 459 radio towers, and by the end of the year there will be 529 active radio towers,” said Claudio Bermúdez, assistant telecommunications director at ICE. “This will allow the unification of all the platforms of phone and messaging companies, as well as improved sending and receiving of information and improved coverage at the national level.”

To activate the new system on Saturday, all GSM customers, both Alcatel and Ericsson, must turn off their phone, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on. When the phone is turned back on, the new and improved signal should be activated. If the phone does not register the new signal, GSM users are instructed to call customer service numbers 115 and 193. The users transferred from the Alcatel network have phone numbers that begin with digits between 8810 and 8851, as well as from 8950 to 8951.

In addition to an improved signal, the united network is expected to provide more security for GSM phone users. According to ICE, all GSM phones are registered with the Equipment Identification Registry (EIR), which contains the registration information of all GSM users. If a phone is stolen or lost, the EIR will automatically block usage of the phone by other users.

ICE said the undertaking will cost a total of $17.5 million, which includes the consolidation of the networks and the construction and activation the radio towers.