Check the audio testing can you hear all right. And we're live let me know if you can hear me
like I was saying wait can you hear me now can you can you hear me wait wait no no don't hang up
wait wait you know the internet in Costa Rica is a lot like the Cell Phone days of yesteryear where
people just couldn't hear you know they were like standing on their tiptoe and and you know trying
to get a signal. Reaching for a connection. And it feels like we're always reaching for
a connection hey if this is your first time here well I'm Allen and this is my beautiful
co-host Rebecca and we are living in Costa Rica. Today we're going to be talking about the internet
in Costa Rica and you know they've made a lot of huge improvements just since we've been
here since November 2013. Yes indeed. You know when we first got here we were now in
San Vito and in San Vito man it was just very I even know if we're still alive okay all right hey
let us know in the chat box are we actually live it says that we're live but you know I don't even
know if we're live or not let me see if we can I tell you boy the challenge
is sometimes it goes to rica all right okay let us know are you able to hear us
and are we live it looks like we are live indeed. Okay all right fantastic okay anyway like I was
saying when we first got here hey we were in in San Vito close to the border but you know
down there at the border, it's not nearly as developed as you know central Costa Rica Central
Valley for sure yeah very developed that's right and so you know the internet was just terrible I
mean unless you were right in town you couldn't hardly get the internet and you know today we're
talking about internet because as you guys know you know we had to kind of move and we had to move
like really fast because the rental that we were living in well the owner sold that rental and
so we even though we've got our eyes on a place and we're trying to move to a new place well we
don't have internet there so we can't quite move and we had to move to this temporary place
which is in the middle of town yes and interestingly enough we're going to tell you
about the high-speed internet that we have in the middle of town but you know that has
been pretty much the case you can get dependable internet influence to town yeah if you choose
to live in town you can get dependable internet however I don't know that there's that many what
do you think do you think it's that many Gringos or foreigners that want to live in town if
they come to Costa Rica I don't think so most people that I talk to are looking to come
either live at the beach you know near the beach or somewhere up in the mountains kind of in
nature secluded very few people I've talked to want to like just move here to live in San
Jose or you know in any kind of populated lots of businesses you know in town right type
situation although we have met some there are a few people that do have an airbnb in town you know
and they they live there but then they also travel they go out to the beach and then they go you know
they're kind of in between places most people want to live in nature and they want to live away
from town however you know living in the city of San Jose is not like living in the city in New
York or something like that so it's almost like they're living in the suburbs if they live in San
Jose compared to living in New York or you know Las Vegas or you know some of those big areas but
anyway the point here is today we're talking about internet so let me just give you a quick rundown
or a quick history of Costa Rica's internet so that you really have an idea what to expect
because although we can tell you from our opinion of the experience our experience you know the
facts is what you need to know about okay so as I was doing some research for today's life you know
we found out that hey look in 1993 the internet started January 1993 the internet started in
Costa Rica at the Computer Science School and it was only accessed by about 1500 users they
had 12 ports, okay and so it was used only for a couple of years by the school it wasn't until
April of 1995 that it was available to the first private entity which happens to be the nation
which is a newspaper company who became the first private entity to have access to the internet
in the country okay now that was April of 1995 and they boasted being the first online
newspaper although nobody had internet and couldn't read the online newspaper anyway so
that's kind of funny but they got a jump start they got a jump starter first they knew it was
coming they knew it was coming so in 1995 they got internet however it wasn't until 10 years later
in 2005 that the inauguration or inauguration inauguration inauguration okay I mess up
English just like I do Spanish it's okay anyway EC or Kolbi was the first company
to bring broadband connectivity throughout the country so hey look we've been
in the country over half of that time so it's really only been about 15 years that Costa Rica
has had internet available to the public okay now and that we've been here a little over seven years
of that 15 years and you know it's grown a whole lot and now let me go a little bit further because
in 2005 EC or Kolbi started broadband connectivity and presently okay in midnight mid 2019 Costa
Rica had 78,000 Kilometers of fiber optic line and one year later they've got nearly 193,000
Kilometers of fiber optic high speed cable so they are putting it out all over the place and
it is taking time but we've been seeing a lot of work where they're putting in Fiber Optic which
is making life a lot better for a lot of people a lot of good results from the Fiber Optic
compared to the what would it what would it be it was Broadband before and so you know
what's important is that Fiber Optic gives us faster speeds and it also stability yeah it's
more stable internet which is what was lacking with the broad Broadband that's right so you
know with Fiber Optic it is making it a whole lot better and it's even making it better for
people that are in remote areas because then you have entrepreneurs that can bring you internet
out there so if they're bouncing internet they're bouncing stable internet that's right versus
Broadband now with that said according to speed tests just so that you kind of know where Costa
Rica ranks according to speedtest.net which tracks the Global internet speed Costa Rica listen to
this folks this is important Costa Rica ranks 80th on the Global scale as far as speeds for
internet with an average of 43 Megs download which puts Costa Rica way behind where the United
States ranks 12th okay with average speeds of 179 Megabits down with Panama being 36 so that
kind of gives you an idea Costa Rica is 80th the United States is 12th Panama being 36 okay so
that kind of gives you an idea where you're at and so when you come to Costa Rica it is different it
is way behind but they are making some huge leaps in their technology and infrastructure with Costa
Rica okay now just because they are installing Fiber Optic doesn't mean it's available in your
area and lots of smaller towns may not get it for another year or two but they are claiming to
have Fiber Optic eventually everywhere so it is getting better yes it's coming that's right now
let's talk about some of the options of internet for a long long time like we said in 2005 Colby
or EC which EC is the state-owned municipality or government okay and their branch called
Kolbi is what provides internet to everybody however they used to be the sole provider
they what is the word what is it called they had a Monopoly yeah they had a Monopoly and they
wanted to keep that Monopoly for a while but it wasn't until years later or I don't know how many
years later they finally opened it up to others and to private businesses now they are all these
private businesses all buy their internet from EC or Kolbi and then they turn around and resell it
to everybody else okay but they provide it cheaper better faster so just to give you an example okay
Kolbi while it's very popular a lot of customers that Colby now actually offers up to 500 Megs
downloads so let me stop right there and kind of give you some understanding and I don't want to go
too high-tech because I don't want to lose people but you know everybody when you get internet
most of the people use only download so when you're buying internet and they say we got fast
internet well you know fast internet used to be 10 20 50. Well now you can get 100 200 and even in
Costa Rica at Kolbi you can get up to 500 Megs download well download if you stop and think
you're downloading information and most of the time that's what people do when they're
downloading Emails they're downloading a Movie they're streaming a movie hardly anybody very few
people actually use upload when you send an Email where you're actually uploading and then it goes
somewhere okay for us as Youtubers or if you do web design and things like that you're constantly
uploading a lot of stuff as Youtubers well we upload lots of videos and that can require a
lot of internet which makes it a challenge for Youtubers in Costa Rica if you live in a remote
area okay so so that you understand everybody has and most everybody uses download not not a
whole lot of people use much upload so Kolbi will sell you 500 down with only 20 up okay whereas
in the United States you know it's easy to get even a Hundred up okay but that's just rare you
don't see that in Costa Rica so anyway just to give you an idea Kolbi will sell you 500 up to 500
Megs down with 20 up and it'll cost you 200,000 Colones okay now 200,000 Colones at today's rate
is somewhere around 300 350 Dollars a month okay now or you can buy just a hundred Megs download
and that comes with only 12 up for about 40,000 Colones that's about 70 a Month okay now their
competition which the best one is Cabletica now Cabletica if you are going to come to Costa Rica
and you're going to buy internet I highly suggest that you look for Cabletica in English it looks
like Cabletica and so Cabletica is a super good company they do have some English people speaking
there but Cabletica has grown and grown and grown and they were one of the first private sectors to
provide internet and with Cabletica you can buy a hundred Megs down and I don't know how
much they're up is their website didn't show but it's only 26,000 Colones which is you
know around 30 Bucks as compared to 70 Bucks for the same thing with EC or Kolbi okay now with
Cabletica they'll run a line into your house and so you can have a hard line run right into your
computer or right into your router whereas some of the other competitions so one of the most
popular internet providers is called Claro okay now Claro is very very popular they do some
massive advertising and tends to reach out to more more remote remote areas and that's because their
internet mostly not all of it but the majority of their internet is wireless which means that
it's wireless you have this little modem and you connect wirelessly to it you don't
actually have a landline that you can plug into your computer okay so it's important
that you understand that with wireless Claro provides you this little modem and it's
wireless and it's oversold so because it's coming off of antennas if you live close enough
to an antenna you can get some decent internet but because it's oversold well when people are
at home and people are using internet well your internet is pretty much non-existent even when you
talk to the Ticos or the locals they will tell you they all hate Claro but unfortunately they are
probably the only option my personal opinion is I've been with Claro and they are they're not an
honest company they have cheated me they still owe me over 60,000 Colones for a deposit because
they never finished the installation and so anyway that's a long story but hey I don't like Claro
they're not honest they wouldn't give me back the 60,000 Colones and they never installed and
then they tried to charge me even more so you do want to be very very careful so as a last resort
don't use Claro unless you don't have any other option or choice but you do have a couple of
options like you do have Cabletica I would highly suggest you have Kolbi or EC which would be second
and then now let's talk about startling because a lot of people talked about Starlink and hey I
talked about Starlink on a couple of videos ago Starlink is a new company that Elon Musk is
creating and his goal is to provide decent high-speed internet all over the World okay now
it's not available in Costa Rica yet however if you go to their website they claim that it is
going to be available in Costa Rica in 2022 which is only a few months away about a half
a year away now I went to try out starlink and they actually took my Money because Starlink says
now look it's available in some areas to Beta or first time user so it's first come first served
so I had to actually put a 99 Dollar deposit down and so I'm hoping that hey maybe they'll call me
soon and they'll send out a Satellite Dish and the thing that you need to know about Starlink is that
as long as you can mount that Satellite Dish on your roof and you have a clear open sky you know
so you don't have to go through trees or anything then you should be able to get good internet
and they're talking about anywhere from 50 to 150 download speeds and so I don't know
what upload speeds but and they're talking about very short latency which means you know you
will actually be able to do Skype calls and you know VoIP calls because that's the problem
with Satellite with typical Satellite and you can buy Satellite we could buy Satellite internet
here but it's terribly terribly terribly expensive for very slow internet okay it buffers a lot it
buffers a whole lot and you know you're talking and you're 30 Seconds behind and it's very you
can't even hardly have a decent conversation so Starlink will be an option in the near future and
I did say on the other video I didn't think that they would supply it here because I just don't
think there's enough people however when you have someone like with Elon Musk who has way more
than enough Money He's not concerned so much with how many people he's just concerned with the goal
yeah He has a goal of going Worldwide He has a goal of going Worldwide and so that's what he's
doing he's spending tons of Money on Spaceships and Aircrafts and Satellites and so I've been
following them real closely and so hopefully that is going to be a great advantage a great plus for
people who want to live in remote areas like Us yes okay now for all you folks that saw the promo
of me climbing a tower and installing a Satellite Dish or you know that's an antenna that's one way
that entrepreneurs provide internet to people that live in remote areas and that kind of internet
is crazy high we were paying an entrepreneur a Hundred and Five Dollars a Month and we got Six
down and Three up and hardly ever did we get Six and Three and the service was terrible terrible
terrible so that is an option until Starlink is available however those options are expensive
and there isn't a provider that will provide it to where we are going so I'm having to buy the
towers buy the antennas and install it myself so it's a good thing I'm a high tech Redneck
wait hold my beer and watch what I can do. If we would have known I mean my Apple juice if
we would have known Starlink was coming you know we spent a lot of money on on towers and so forth
but we'll have a backup yeah we'll have you know the good thing is that you know we don't know when
Starlink will be available however it's an option and we're trying to get moved now so hopefully
within a few weeks 30 Days we'll be moved to the piece of property that we're going to it's not
actually our piece of property it's actually a good friend of ours who has asked us to come to
his property because He's in poor health and kind of help look after Him because He doesn't have any
family here so and we're wanting to buy in that area anyway so it kind of gives us a an incentive
to go there since we're wanting to live in that area anyhow so anyway that kind of gives you an
idea and soon you're going to be seeing videos as we begin building on an off-grid homestead yes
that's going to be a lot of fun isn't it I think so we're going to find out so and hopefully
we're going to take a lot of you along for the ride so anyway let's get back to the internet
because I do want to remind you that hey I see a lot of questions a lot of comments and so we're
definitely going to answer all those questions and comments on our q a session which is going to
happen at 12 I mean it's going to happen at 2:45 Eastern Standard Time so as always we try to shut
this baby down you know in about 30 Minutes and then we start our Q and A and I do want to give
a quick shout out and thanks to John and you know for other people that give us donations and
contribute to our efforts we greatly appreciate it John says let me buy you another Apple juice thank
you very much we greatly appreciate it so much all your contributions are very helpful as we
do spend a lot of time doing research we greatly appreciate it and we also want to take time
to thank all those people that join our forum there is a link to the description in the
description below to where you can join our forum and it's absolutely free but there is a
premium area hey it's only ten Dollars a Month but that's a great great way to support us and our
efforts as we're continuing to do the research travel get all of this information which will help
you when you come to Costa Rica yes you know which is really really exciting so we do want to say
thank you very much for that so back to this because I'm going to answer all of your questions
in the Q and A but you know we talked about Colby we talked about Claro Cabletica and Starlink which
is going to hopefully be available in 2022. I hope we're going to find out more about that but hey
they took my 99 Bucks so they must be very serious about what they're doing and I hope I'll be a beta
tester soon okay so that gives you a whole lot of information now here's what's real important
because I did do a video in our video where we talked about finding rentals in that video we
talked about how when you're looking for rentals how to look on the light poles to find out if
there's internet in that area and they normally have like a little grayish green box on there and
that's where they have the ports where they plug into the ports and run internet to your house okay
now just because you see those ports doesn't mean that you have internet there and so like we told
you you know I'm buying towers building towers buying antennas and installing internet so that
we'll have interstate internet in the very very remote mountains where we're going okay however
you can't create your own internet you still have to buy it from a provider and so where our initial
tower is so we have a tower sitting way over here and we have a tire sitting way up here at
a mountain and would you can you get one of those antennas for me so you know you got a tower
sitting way down here and a tire weight in the mountain well if this tower over here you've got
to have it in a place where an internet provider can hook a cable up to it and then from that and
from that tower you send the internet to another tower and then from there you can have internet
in a rural area so at this point in time you know we'll have an internet tower over in the valley
in this one little community called Futuro Grande and we'll be shooting to another tower sitting
over here and we're using antennas similar to this right here okay now we actually have one
that is way way bigger than this one here will go for about Five miles but oh yeah I don't
know how much you heard but anyway She says Rebecca has the Mic She walked away I'm sure
you probably could hear I hope you can hear He says your Mic just walked away okay so anyway
you know we have a great big huge antenna and this one will shoot I mean about Six Seven Eight
maybe Ten miles away but we have a great big one that's going from like I said from one tower to
the other and it's shooting 32 kilometers away up the mountain to where we're at so that we can
get internet now all that can be very very costly but you still got to have internet at
Futuro Grande and so I installed all of those towers and I went down there and now
we've had internet we've had internet before when we did live there and I go down there and
they're like sorry out of the internet no what no internet really you know so but it's only
easy there okay only Colby there's no competition and the government they're not concerned with
their bottom line or profit and they have no. Nothing's pushing them to install more ports okay
which means I have to buy business internet now to give you an idea I told you that you could buy you
know a Hundred Megs of internet from Colby with 12 up for about 70 Bucks a month well to buy business
internet I could get 10 Megs download with 10 Megs up that's only 10 and it's gonna cost me about
500 Dollars a month for business internet and that makes like no sense at all right but Costa Rica
like a lot of countries if you're buying something that they think that you're using to make money
I'm buying business internet not because I'm a business but because there's no other options
then they charge you an arm and a leg so yeah right now I'm missing a Leg so I mean you see my
two Arms but I gave away my Leg for that internet so it's insanely high okay and so I'm still
looking and hopefully, we'll find some other alternative because you know it's just it
would be terrible if I would have to spend 500 Dollars a month for internet yes you know
but if you have no choice you have no choice okay so anyway that just kind of gives you an idea
that is an option if you have no other place but hopefully, Starlink will fix that particular
problem okay and that'll make things better there's continually new internet providers
popping up friends of ours who still live out in San Vito let us know that there's a new company
called Cablebrus Cotobrus or Cablebrus Cablebrus and they weren't there when we were there but they
are actually providing high-speed internet right 100 Megs you know and that's pretty amazing very
reasonable prices yeah now obviously I told you about the most popular you know I think the most
popular in Costa Rica is Cabletica and of course EC has always been popular Colby but and then
Claro's very very popular but most oversold and they're not a very honest company okay most people
don't like them I can't blame them okay but there are a lot of different providers however most
of them are in the San Jose or Metropolitan area oh Metropolitan area because that's where most of
the people are at okay so that's just something for you to think about so it's no sense in even
actually telling you that so there are lots of questions and I want to be sure to answer all
of those questions on the Q and A so be sure to remember your questions but put those questions in
there because I do want to go over those questions and answer every single question in our live Q and
A so what else do we have to cover on our talking about internet inc oh you know what talking about
internet in Costa Rica okay very important write this down you need to you know internet providers
will sell you high-speed internet and they'll tell you about wonderful internet knowing that
the majority of the people have no clue how to tell if they have fast internet or not okay so to
check your internet you simply go to speedtest.net I need to put that in the description below but
if you go to speedtest.net then you can click and it will tell you how fast your download
speed is and how fast your upload speed is to prove a point we moved here and the
owners of the landlord of this property works online and so She understands the importance
of having high speed internet and She actually pays for a Hundred Megs of internet so right
now I'm kind of like in heaven because on my computer I'm actually able to download 80 Megs of
internet and that's probably why you're having a good experience today and our video should not
be buffering because we are at a place with good internet keep in mind we are in town however
when we got here and we tested the internet with speedtest.net I could only get about 10 okay
and the reason is because the routers that She is using is probably old or maybe can't it could be
a new one but can't handle that kind of speed and the router I have can handle 200 300 Megs down so
anyway She ended up running a landline to me and I took that landline and I plugged that landline up
into my router which then gave everybody you know Rebecca and all of our devices high-speed
internet where we can easily get 70 down so even though and that's something for you to
think about even though the company is gonna sell you a Hundred you almost never ever get
a Hundred usually you should be able to get you know you're gonna lack about Ten percent
you know if they sell you a Hundred well you might lose about 10 percent in the line and
you'll get about 90. so I've actually been able to checking my speed test could get 89.90 down okay
so it's just something for you to know but the only way you're going to know is we've gone to
many many places oh yeah we got fast internet and you check the speed test Three well Three
is not fast internet but since they don't know how to check the internet they think they have
fast internet and you know for most people if you're just sending Email that's fast internet so
it's important to know how to do that and for a lot of people that's all that they need like you
said and then in the instance here the landlord She knows that She's paying for 100 Meg so She
just figured you know She was getting 100 Megs that's right and She was even talking about buying
the 200 Meg package since it wasn't that much more and you know She really doesn't need it
but She didn't know that She wasn't getting Oliver 100 because her router wasn't giving her
that because her router couldn't handle that right and I'm not hardwired in and I've like maybe
a website's running slowly and I've checked since we've been here and it'll be 25 30 you know so
it does drop it does drop depending you know if you're not hardwired in if you're hardwired in
you're always going to get the fastest internet and that's why it's important for us to
have a landline or a Fiber Optic line or a Broadband line that plugs into your computer if
you have something that plugs into your computer you're going to get the best speed but if you have
a good router and you plug into that router then you should be able to get fairly decent speed on
your other devices as well right and like Allen was saying just a real important tip for when
you're looking for a place to rent never just take what they're telling you as far as you know this
internet speed being faster in this process of trying to find a place to move to quickly I've
looked at a lot of houses and talked to a lot of people and they'll say oh yes we have Claro and
it's very fast we know we know about Claro that it's it how it drops and that at Six Seven Eight
o'clock in the evening it just it's almost down to nothing you can't get early you know anything
done but in their minds you know they're they have sufficient or good internet fast internet
that's right because they're most of them they're just Facebooking they're not even Emailing they're
just Facebooking so you need to check it yourself you know have your own device your phone or
whatever and check the speed at a place before signing on the dotted line that's right that's
right so it's important and so I'm giving you all of this information that's going to be very
handy for you when you come to Costa Rica yeah and we've had a lot of people ask can I work
online from Costa Rica you know is there fast enough internet reliable stable enough internet
and yes there is it just depends on where you're wanting to live absolutely that and that's the one
reason that we're actually having this live today because you know we talked about how one of the
disadvantages of living in Costa Rica is the bad internet now it's bad internet because we normally
live in remote areas however if you live close to the city or if you live near the city or if you
live in the city you can definitely get some really good internet and now with the installation
of Fiber Optic well now you can really get it in more and more areas okay and Cabletica you can
look at their coverage areas and you can find out where they cover and so you have to keep in mind
with Kolbi it's you still got to be close and they could care less if they run out of internet right
okay so you want to be in the more populated towns you know like we suggest San Isidro Perez
Zeledon area if you get to where there's more populated areas obviously where there's a lot
of gringos and Foreigners you're going to get more internet I have seen have I have seen remote areas
where there was a high concentration of Gringos yeah clusters and they will run a line out to that
remote area because they know that Gringos are going to pay for that internet or if it's a really
touristy area out in the middle of nowhere like at Club Bridge at Club Bridge yeah so that's right so
you know those are important facts to know about so I think that is pretty much it right then it's
which gives us about 10 minutes so keep in mind we're going to go ahead and shut it down and
I think I've given you all of the information you need to know about internet so it's real
important to understand speedtest.net you know the best internet provider is going to be Cabletica
and there's in the forum if you join our forum there's a free section in the forum where you can
download the best internet providers I think it's in the free section in there but anyway join our
forum and it's free to join there is the premium areas and we greatly appreciate it whenever
you join up as a premium member so that you can support us we really really appreciate it okay
so with that said let me get ready to close this down and let's get ready for our next live our q
a where we're going to answer all of these great questions and comments that you've been putting
into the chat box okay so we greatly look forward to seeing you on the next Q and A in just a few
minutes anything else not right now all right we'll see you in about 10 minutes on the next live
Q and A we'll be answering all of your questions about internet and don't forget thank you so much
Doug don't forget to please hit that like button we you know hit that like button and we're also
going to be talking about hey where have we been what's been happening why hasn't there been
a video we're gonna answer all your questions and more on the next live q a so please hit
that like button right now we greatly greatly appreciate you and we look forward to seeing
you in the next live Q and A we'll see you then.
