cell phones in Costa Rica

Peter, The CR phones are on the GSM systems and the USA services which do work in CR are any of them which work on Cingular and/or T-Mobile. These systems work on the same GSM frequencies and will roam there as well as a local’s cell phone will.
Caution here – my Cingular phone has an international feature which I pay an extra $5 per month for, which allows my phone number to follow me and my phone in CR. The problem is though, that the call is still $1.99 per minute, incoming or outgoing, and including checking my voicemail!!!!
My suggestion is this – USE YOUR E-MAIL instead!!!! Everyone has a high speed access point, and it’s essentially free!!! I found that my laptop could find wi-fi spots at about every other block in San Jose, and essentially had similar reception by that method than the cell phones reception anyway.
I think it’s about time too, to look into VOIP. That allows your laptop to act like a phone by making phone calls through the internet… it’s coming soon!
And, when it’s time to sit down and make a few calls, use the phone calling cards!!!! When I use them they come in $5 and $10 increments, and last forever calling around in CR locally, and cost $17 per minute when calling the USA, which beat my cell phone by about a plane ticket in comparison!!!
If you MUST take your phone, leave it off until you need it, or the roaming daily fees are a killer too. I left mine off for three days before I ‘really needed’ it, and saved about $10 per day for a week long trip.
If you need ‘a’ phone, check the car rental companies. Some of them rent phones along with the cars for about $10 per day.
Good luck!
Jim