VSAT Systems subsidiary Datzap has been granted a license to operate in Costa Rica following three years of negotiations with the Costa Rican government and U.S. trade representatives, the company said in a statement.
   Datzap will use the license to offer customers access to VSAT Systems’ extensive satellite uplink facility and infrastructure, which will provide direct access to the U.S. Internet backbone and guarantee high performance and security not currently available from local Costa Rican resellers of their government’s satellite system.
   “This is a great day not only for VSAT, but for U.S. businesses in general,” VSAT Systems President Mike Kister said in a statement. “Through the granting of our license by the Costa Rican government, we become the first U.S. company to enter a marketplace where there had been nothing but a government monopoly for decades … We have been building out our teleport infrastructure in anticipation of the granting of this license. We have invested nearly $1.3 million over the last 18 months in our network operations center in Akron to add additional capacity and redundancy to our systems.”
   Datzap President Donald Wayne Jacobs added that the company would initially provide services through resellers operating in rural areas of Costa Rica. “But, we expect to move into population centers soon thereafter. The terrain and existing infrastructure make Costa Rica an ideal candidate for satellite communications.”