My wife, Cindy, and I retired to Costa Rica in August of 2006 after living and working for most of our lives in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California.

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We purchased some land in the Portalon area, about halfway between Quepos and Dominical on the Pacific Coast, and built our retirement home which includes a main house, a guest house and a care takers house.

After living with high speed Internet access for over twenty years in the U.S., we were hoping to find a good way to continue with high speed access, even out in the middle of the Rain Forest.

Various Solutions Available:

With all aspects of computers everything is a trade-off and it usually ends up being about cost vs. speed. It seems that what you want is always rather more expensive than you’d like to pay, and this is especially true when you are looking at newer technology.

While dial-up networking has been around a long time and is extremely inexpensive, the extreme slow speed does not make this a viable alternative if you plan to access the World Wide Web much of the time. Even when just used for email this becomes a problem as soon as you attach any sort of document or photo to your messages. At our house we don’t have a dia-lup line available yet so this is not an option for us even if we wanted it.

With no dial-up line, other telephone based services such as ISDN and the various types of DSL were not available for us to consider. Even if they were available here, these are not at the top of my list. In my experience they are more expensive than is justified by the speed.

ISDN is pretty good, but DSL can have definite reliability problems especially when first getting started with using it. In addition, these types of services are only available within short distances of a telephone company office. Others I talk with indicate they have had good experiences with ADSL, for example, and service varies with different providers.

GSM Cellular Internet is another option. However, when we asked ICE about this in October of 2006, we were told that it was not available at that time. Later on we talked with others who use this and were told that it is pretty slow access, and the connection is not very reliable. That’s not what we were looking for.

Cable Internet service is arguably the best trade-off when available. It is more expensive than a dial-up service but overall is an excellent balance between cost and speed. However, this is not available in our area yet. We had to keep looking for another solution.

Fiber optic is one of the best possible solutions, and one of the most expensive. Extremely high speeds are possible, but fiber is rarely available. We understand that a fiber optic cable is running down the Costanera, but we have not heard that there will be any taps into the fiber cable in our area.

That left us looking at a satellite based service. While this can provide extremely high speeds, there are some down sides, too. The initial cost is high, monthly fees can be high, rain or heavy clouds can interrupt service and, depending on your usage, latency can be a problem (it takes a long time back and forth to a satellite that is 22,000 miles away). However, this can be a very good choice when other high speed options are not available.

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After looking at a couple of different providers (see the Reference section, below), we decided to purchase service through Skycasters located in Ohio. Since we did this, Skycasters has started doing business in Costa Rica under the name TicoSat.com.

Land-based microwave Internet is another option. We were originally unaware that this type of service was available. This service uses a “grid” antenna which is much smaller and less obtrusive than a satellite dish antenna. The setup requires direct line-of-sight from the broadcasting antenna to the receiving antenna.

Service providers such as SkylynxCostaRica.com broadcast from cellular towers like the one in Quepos, for example. Installation costs are much less than for satellite Internet and various service plans are available.

Requests for technical details from SkylynxCostaRica.com did not produce results, but one of our neighbors has since started using this service and they are satisfied with the result. The installation process took longer than expected and at first, even though their PC was connected to the Internet, they could not get Internet telephone service working. However, after several changes made by Skylynx, they now are able to place and receive Internet phone calls.

One note of caution: The antennas discussed here use high energy microwaves. At no time should a person stand in front of these antennas, and care should be used to position the antenna in such a way as to prevent someone from inadvertently moving in front of the dish. Installation regulations in the U.S. require safeguards that are often overlooked here in Costa Rica.

Skycasters/TicoSat:

After selecting Skycasters as our service provider, the next step was to decide on a service plan. Once again we have the trade-off between cost and speed. Skycasters provides various levels of service plans, starting at $100 per month for 96Kb/1.02Mb/1GB, all the way up to $1,000 per month for 1.02Mb/2.04Mb/15GB.

For a description of the numbers used here, see the section titled “Internet Speed: What the Numbers Mean”, below.

Skycasters.com does business under various other names including TicoSat.com here in Costa Rica, Net2Dish.com, SatVenturesManagement.com and VSat-Systems.com. I have not done research on these various names but, as far as I can tell, these are all the same group of people.

We chose a plan that provides 128Kb/1.02Mb/1GB for $150 per month. We thought this was the minimum that would allow us to make phone calls using a “Voice over Internet Protocol” or VoIP service while using another computer to access the Internet at the same time.

Another decision was what hardware to purchase. We decided on a 1.2 meter dish and a 4-watt transmitter. A 1.8 meter dish is available but is only necessary when you are located in an area where the satellite signal is not so strong. In addition a 2-watt transmitter is available but, given the issues with clouds and rain, we decided to purchase the stronger transmitter.

At the time we made this decision, Skycasters was just starting a pilot program to provide the needed hardware in Costa Rica at a single price without having to wait for shipping or pay customs charges. Because we chose the $150 per month plan, the cost of the dish, transmitter, modem and cabling was $4,500. Installation was an additional $500.

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While this is quite a lot, this is a one time charge. We also plan to share our dish with other locations (more on this below) which would leverage the cost of the hardware. Skycasters requires a two year minimum contract for the monthly service. At $150 per month this is a contract for $3,600 over two years.

In addition, Skycasters requires an “Uninterruptable Power Supply” (UPS) for the hardware to prevent issues with power spikes, brown outs and outages. And, as we were supplying Internet connections to four rooms in our house, we also needed to provide an “Internet Router” device so we had a connection for each room. These two extra pieces of hardware added another $300 to the setup costs.

It turns out that Skycasters will adjust the hardware price based on the service plan. Prior to signing the Skycasters contract I spoke with “Tito,” a graphic artist in Montezuma and Skycaster customer, who stated that he selected a plan that provides 640Kb/2.04Mb/3GB for $250 per month.

Since he signed a more expensive contract, Skycasters sold him the hardware package for $4,200, including a 1.8 meter dish, 4-watt transmitter and the satellite modem. The installation charge was included in this price, and the monthly contract was for $6,000 over two years.

As early customers, Tito and I paid somewhat different prices than those currently offered on the TicoSat Web site. Apparently they were still working out their pricing structure and contract terms at the time we signed up.

Be sure to note that Skycasters provides a limited amount of data over your connection per month, and additional usage is billed at $0.10 per Megabyte. So make sure to check your usage or the additional charges can add up quickly!

If you plan to download large amounts of data such as audio, video, high resolution images or make a lot of Internet telephone calls, you will certainly want to plan accordingly and select a service plan that includes the data throughput you need.

Installation Problems:

It seems that things rarely work the first time, and this seems especially true with new networking hardware. We almost did not get the dish successfully installed.

But even before that point we had a lot of work simply completing the paperwork. Looking back in my email as I write this article, I count eighty-four separate email messages sent and received over the course of two and a half months. Also there were half a dozen international phone calls and three FAX phone calls. To be fair this was, as I mentioned, during a pilot program. In addition, I misunderstood what I was told about making a preliminary payment which caused an additional delay.

Also, during this time, we had to ensure that we had a direct line of sight to the satellite that Skycasters uses for their service. At 55 degrees elevation and an azimuth of 113 degrees (South South-West) I wasn’t sure at first if we would clear the large hill and trees behind our house. It turned out we have great access and a nice, strong
signal.

After all that, the installation almost didn’t happen. The person who does installations in Costa Rica for Skycasters is a wonderful and friendly guy. We did test his patience with this installation. While we had a very strong signal, we also had a continuing problem with maintaining a network connection.

The installer had other sites in the area that he had to install, but he kept coming back to try and figure out what was wrong here. For a while we thought that the mounting post for the dish was not stable enough and we went to some additional effort to reinforce the post. We also tried changing the modem, the cables to the dish antenna and the 4-watt transmitter, but nothing seemed to help.

At one point, the owner of the company decided to refund our money for the hardware and stop trying. The installer asked for one more chance and, during numerous cell phone conversations with the technicians in Ohio, finally resolved the problem.

We are very thankful to our installer for his persistence. I never did find out the details, but it was something that was corrected in Ohio. The total installation time from inquiry to successful completion was three months to the day.

Internet Telephone:

Once we were sure that our connection was working and stable, we started looking at Voice over IP (VoIP) services. There are a lot of options (see the Reference Links, below) but we quickly settled on Skype. This is easy to use and very reliable with high quality audio. And the price is right. Most VoIP services require a monthly payment, but with Skype you just pay for toll calls that you make.

Now, for international calls we pay $0.021 per minute (that’s right, slightly over two cents per minute). On weekends Skype has a rate of $0.017, or under two cents per minute. In addition, toll-free calls to the U.S., as well as calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world, are completely free. If you decide to use Skype you will probably want to tell your friends about it.

During the week after we got Skype working, I spent hours on toll-free calls to various credit card and other financial institutions to resolve the many normal business related issues that were piling up during the months we were in Costa Rica.

While there are some U.S. toll-free numbers that won’t work from an international location, I was only blocked on two of the dozen numbers that I was calling. And for these, there was another toll-free number for the company that did work.

There is a downside to using a connection through a geosynchronous satellite for telephone calls. You will notice a slight delay due to latency, much like the delay when a news anchor talks with remote reporters that you see on CNN. However, the delay is brief and simply explaining the situation to the person that you are calling has always solved that slight problem.

One special note: Skype makes it very clear that their service is not intended to be relied on for emergency calls, so you should expect to maintain a cellular or land-based telephone service. There are various other alternatives to Skype. See the Reference Links, below.

A fifteen minute VoIP phone call can result in approximately three Megabytes of data throughput, so be sure to take this into account if you make a lot of calls. Remember that Skycasters provides a limited amount of data over your connection each month and bills extra data at ten cents per Megabyte.

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Six Months Later:

After using our setup for half a year, we are quite satisfied with the results. We need to complete any online work prior to the afternoon rains when our connection is often interrupted, but this keeps us from spending so much time sitting in front of the computer.

We did have some confusion over Skycaster’s billing process, and were surprised by two supplemental bills for traffic over and above our monthly 1GB data allotment. The statements are a little difficult to read, but since I started keeping a written list of payments and receipts, it is easier to keep track of our account.

Skycasters does provide a Web site where you can monitor your daily usage but, with many different Web sites that they use to provide various pieces of account information, it was initially difficult to locate the information we wanted.

We also have to remember that our Internet connection is actually in Ohio in the U.S., and not here in Costa Rica. When I perform an “Internet Speed Test” (see Reference links, below), the nearest speed test server to us is in Toronto, Canada. But that is easy to get used to.

The ability to complete online bill payments and bank transfers from our Banco Nacional account is outstanding. We now pay our electrical, cell phone, worker Seguro and other bills quickly and securely. The ability to transfer money online to other Banco Nacional accounts is fantastic. We especially enjoy not having to keep lots of colones lying around in cash.

We transfer money to workers, our auto mechanic, various stores where we shop for furniture and building materials, and people who stop by with artwork for sale. Whenever we shop somewhere new, we ask if we can make the payment electronically, and usually it’s not a problem. This way we also take advantage of discounts for cash payments.

Account transfers to other Banco Nacional accounts is a trivial process. Transferring money online to accounts at other banks in Costa Rica is easier than what we can do in the U.S. For non-Banco Nacional accounts, getting the correct account and cedula numbers entered into the Web form can be a little tricky the first time. However, the Banco Nacional Web site can remember a “favorite accounts” list which makes subsequent transfers extremely simple.

In the course of writing this article I resumed correspondence with Tito, the graphic artist from Montezuma whom I spoke with prior to selecting Skycasters. He indicated that he is still very happy with his Skycasters service.

Service Interruptions:

While writing this article, we began experiencing intermittent Internet connection problems. After one 24 hour outage and several cell phone calls to Skycasters technical support in Ohio, I was told that the problem was moisture in the transmitter.

In Photo 3 you can see some condensation behind the transparent membrane that covers the cone shaped “feeder horn.” While at the time this photo was taken we did not notice any problems, this is still not a good situation. As additional moisture collected the connection was lost.

In discussing this with Skycasters, it turns out that while the parts are covered under warranty, the service call is not. Before Skycasters would agree to even schedule a service call, we would have been required to sign an “Invoice Authorization” form agreeing to allow the service charge to be billed on our account at a rate of $95 for the first half hour and $75 for each additional hour. The form states that these charges may include travel time.

I was never able to get a clear answer from anyone as to what the actual charges would be. As I was able to clear most of the moisture from the transmitter, we never did have a service call. Since our house is a four or five hour drive from San Jose, I have no idea what the actual charges would be.

The solution was to take the transmitter apart and wait for the parts to dry out. This was a fairly simple procedure, but I’m still not sure what caused the problem. Time will tell if this will lead to more serious transmitter problems from moisture damage.

Another problem is that Skycasters must either FAX or email the “Invoice Authorization” form prior to service. As we don’t have a land line and require our Internet connection for email, without a connection we would have had to ask our nearest neighbors for help, as they do have a FAX line. Fortunately, our service was working in the evenings and we were able to receive the form as an email attachment. I will definitely save this for use later, if necessary, and hope that we won’t need to use it.

Next Steps:

At the moment, only the guest house where we reside and where the satellite dish is located currently has an Internet connection. Since we also have the main house and caretakers houses to consider, we are in the process of creating a wireless “local area network” to provide Internet service to the other two houses.

As an extremely dissatisfied customer of “consumer electronics” in the past, I searched the Web for a better answer. I found a company in Florida named CellAmericas.com that provides commercial quality wireless network hardware especially for sites similar to ours.

As of this writing, we have received some of the hardware but are still waiting for some additional equipment. While there will be a wireless component involved, we do not plan to provide “WiFi” access as this involves some definite network security issues. Once I get this working between our other two houses, perhaps I will write a follow up article.

I would also very much like to share our Internet connection with others in the area. There are several other gringos living nearby who are struggling with various types of slow Internet connections. Several people have shown an interest in our setup.

In addition, my ideal goal is to make Internet connections available to the nearby schools in Pasito and Portalon. Of course this will mean switching to a more expensive contract with Skycasters to provide additional data throughput at higher speeds, and installing network “usage monitoring” software so we can anticipate growth and allocate costs accurately. With progress comes complexity.

However, until such time as CAFTA passes and/or some other type of official de-regulation legislation is adopted for ICE (the state-run power monopoly in Costa Rica), I will refrain from making any Internet service available outside of our single lot. Unfortunately, the legal issues are not currently clear.

Legal Issues:

Let me state that am I not an attorney, nor have I played one on TV. I’ve spoken with an attorney and with others who have also spoken with attorneys. The big problem is that everyone says something different. ICE, the company that provides electricity, telephone, cellular and Internet services in Costa Rica, is a monopoly. But, from what I read, there is no current law regulating Internet service in Costa Rica.

That means it is not illegal to compete with ICE Internet service. That means it is not illegal to receive a satellite Internet signal, even if the provider does not make payments necessary for the privilege of doing business in Costa Rica. That means it is not illegal to retransmit our Internet signal to others and charge for the service.

But what is the reality? Does ICE drive around with radio frequency analyzers to search for WiFi hot spots? Or is ICE resigned to the fact that, even without the passage of CAFTA, some sort of de-regulation is bound to happen and, therefore, are not looking for “transgressors”?

What would happen, for example, if an ICE electric meter reader reported our satellite dish? What would happen if we started a business to provide Internet service and someone, a dissatisfied customer for example, complained to ICE? Would they try to confiscate our equipment?

Until such time as we receive some consistent and reasonable answers to these questions we will continue to enjoy our “private network” and not share it with others. We will limit our assistance to such things as helping others determine the right Internet solution for their needs, and to sharing information about what has worked for us.

Summary:

We have been in Costa Rica full time for one year this month, and absolutely love it here. Was our Internet setup a difficult journey? Somewhat. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Would we do it again? You bet!

When cable Internet is not available, we would probably choose to install Skycasters service on future construction projects. However, the telecommunications industry changes daily. For a future project we would definitely start another evaluation process to find the best solution available at that time.

I hope this article is useful to others who are contemplating the daunting task of investigating alternative Internet service choices in Costa Rica. If you have questions or comments or find parts of this overly technical, feel free to contact the author on his cell phone at (506) 869-55-62.

Internet Speed: What the Numbers Mean:

The Internet is a shared resource and, as such, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a little game to increase data throughput. Since most people send a very small amount of data “upstream” to other computers (such as clicking a mouse on a Web link), and generally receive larger amounts of data “downstream” from other computers (such as receiving a Web page with lots of graphics), a network connection is configured with two different data rates.

A cable Internet connection, for example, might have a download speed in the range of 768 Kilobits to 1.5 Megabits per second, but only have an upload speed of 128 Kilobits per second. This is why it seems so much faster when you receive an email message with a large attachment and seems slower when you send a message with attachments. Because it is!

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The speed-related numbers are different from the amount of data that might be transmitted during a given month over a connection.

Cable Internet providers don’t usually try to limit the amount of data you send or receive. With our Skycasters connection, we have a limit of 1 Gigabyte (1,000 Megabytes) per month. This does not mean that after transmitting 1 Gigabyte of data the connection stops. We do, however, receive a supplemental bill, at $0.10 per Megabyte, for any data over our monthly limit.

So, in this article, when discussing a contract that provides 256Kb/1.02Mb/1GB for $150 per month, this means that we have an upload speed of 256 Kilobits per second, a download speed of 1.2 Megabits per second and a monthly limit of 1 Gigabyte of transferred data. See the Reference Links, below, for an easy way to determine approximate data rates for your Internet connection.

In addition, this article discusses “latency” as an issue. When using a satellite in “geosynchronous Earth orbit” (or GEO) for an Internet connection, the satellite will orbit the earth at an altitude of approximately 22,236 miles, or 35,768 Kilometers.

What goes up also comes down, which means a round-trip distance of 44,472 miles, or 71,536 Kilometers. This is IN ADDITION TO other distances involved, such as accessing a Web server in Europe or Asia, for example.

The best possible latency times when using a GEO satellite for an Internet connection are in the one-half second (500 millisecond) range and usually a little bit more. This latency is why VoIP telephone calls have a slight delay when a satellite connection is involved. Even at the speed of light, a journey of over forty-four thousand miles takes time, and a delay of half- or three-quarters of a second (500 – 750 millisecond) becomes noticeable.

Of course it’s not this simple. There are other issues involved when converting Kilobit and Megabit transfer rates into Kilobyte, Megabyte and Gigabyte data file sizes, and calculating latency times includes many other issues as well. Internet purists will cringe at the simplistic explanation here, but this should be sufficient for the purposes of this brief article.

In addition, a satellite is one of the most difficult environments for an Internet connection. Internet protocols were designed in such a way that the long latency times actually diminish the speed in an attempt to improve data throughput. Skycasters has added some protocol enhancements to help alleviate this penalty, and they claim that their service is one of the fastest satellite Internet services available.

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Reference Links:

The links in this section are accurate as of 30-Aug-2007.

Skycasters Internet services
. Net2Dish.com
. SatVenturesManagement.com
. Skycasters.com
. TicoSat.com
. VSat-Systems.com

Other Internet service providers in Costa Rica
. DrDishCR.com / PerfectoDish.com
. SatSig.net
. SkylynxCostaRica.com
. WorkAnywhere.net

Commercial quality wireless hardware
. CellAmericas.com

Test your Internet connection speed
. SpeedTest.net

VoIP requirements, with links to compare services
. compare-voip.net/articles/voip-bandwidth.php

What is Bandwidth?
. quickstartvoip.com/articles/what-is-bandwidth.html

Our thank to VIP Member Chris Cobb for this incredibly detailed article. Chris Cobb was a Programmer, Unix System Administrator, Web master and Software Engineer in Silicon Valley for over twenty years.

This article was originally published online at WeLoveCostaRica.com on 30th August 2007. Copyright (c) 2007 by Chris Cobb, all rights reserved. Feel free to make copies if this notice remains intact and it’s not for profit.


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