In Costa Rica, Free E-Mail Soon to Become a Virtual Reality

With its commitment to education, health care and democracy, this country long ago earned the nickname “the Switzerland of Central America.”

But starting Aug. 1, Costa Ricans will be guaranteed something not even available to the Swiss--or to citizens of any country: free e-mail access.

Over the next few weeks, this nation’s 81 city halls, plus 50 post offices and 19 other government offices, will be equipped with Internet-connected computers, available to the public. E-mail accounts already have been set up for every resident.

“A lot of places offer free e-mail,” said Carlos Moreno, deputy director of RACSA, the government-owned, commercial Internet monopoly. “We are offering access and a computer, which are difficult for poor people to obtain.”

The effort will cost RACSA more than $1 million in equipment and $30,000 a month in free service. The postal service will pay RACSA $15,000 a month for the free service provided at its locations. RACSA’s current 36,000 subscribers will blossom into 3.4 million potential users--in other words, possible paying customers.

One of the first access centers, “Dot Com” at the Central Post Office in downtown San Jose, is a spacious, well-lighted room with 18 computers. Only two are available for free use, with each person allowed 10 minutes at a time. The others rent for 97 cents each half-hour; $1.63 an hour.

On a recent weekday evening, all of the computers were being used and four people were waiting in line.

“It fits in with the social legacy of our country,” said tour guide Rosty Rojas, who had brought his friend Mario Hernandez in to sign up for his free e-mail account. “Just like our ancestors, who initiated the social guarantees, education and health care, the government has seen that it is time to give the people access to information technology.”

Hernandez, a nurse’s aide, acknowledged: “I don’t really even know that much about computers, but this program is for everyone, so I decided to come check it out. I probably wouldn’t have done it alone, but my friend told me it was free and that he would help me set up an account.”

That is exactly the point of the program, according to First Vice President Astrid Fischel Volio.

“The development of communications can help close the gap between rich and poor, the educated and uneducated,” she said. “In Costa Rica, the son of a farmer will have the same opportunity for Internet access as we do here in the presidential palace.”

Spreading knowledge of the Internet is particularly important for a country where computer components have overtaken coffee, bananas and even tourism as generators of dollars. Just as English was introduced into grade-school classrooms when Costa Rica began to develop tourism two decades ago, now computers are being installed.

But the government needed to find a way to bring working Costa Ricans such as Hernandez into the cyber age.

For the first six months, Moreno said, RACSA will also provide free Internet service at the city hall locations. The hope, he said, is that after trying it, people later will be willing to pay for the service.

The announcement of free e-mail thanks to the cooperation of two government monopolies--RACSA and the postal service--coincides with incipient criticism of the state stranglehold on the Internet. The only other Internet service permitted in Costa Rica is the university network, which is restricted to students, faculty and staff.

Guy de Teramond, the president of that network, said that free e-mail is a good first step but not enough. “The question is how this is going to work in practice,” he said. “The system of the Internet is not that RACSA is the Internet. The Internet is supposed to be decentralized.” Communities should control the service, he said.

But for the moment, the ambitious move to bring the Internet to the masses has overtaken most questioning of the government monopolies that make it possible.