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Satellite Internet Service in Costa Rica

August 25th, 2007

Internet service is available all over Costa Rica. That is not to say it will be good Internet service, but at least you can connect. If you live outside of the central valley, the chances of getting a high speed connection drop considerably, though in fairness, many of the popular tourist destinations now have some high speed capability.

However, if you live in any of the many hundreds of other cities outside the central valley or the tourist spots, your only option is a telephone modem, or perhaps a (quite poorly working) connection using a GSM cell phone. Either way, you are getting not only a very slow connection speed but often unreliable service as well.

Over the past few years, there have been companies promoting satellite Internet service in Costa Rica. On the surface, this seems like a great idea for those needing a decent connection speed but who prefer to live outside the main population areas.

As I have written in The REAL Costa Rica, these installation are totally illegal in Costa Rica.

If this topic is of interest to you, read on…

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The Colon Vs The Dollar – Watch your money!

August 12th, 2007

For many years I suggested here in this blog, in The REAL Costa Rica and elsewhere that the smart person living in Costa Rica (or for that matter anyone who keeps money here), should always pay using colones, but keep their money in a dollars account. There was a good reason for this. The colon was, for many years, on a system of scheduled devaluation that made holding colones a losing proposition.

I am now doing a 100% change in that position. If this subject interests you, read on…

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More Questions from Readers

August 10th, 2007

Here are some more questions that I have received either by email or from the main web site, The REAL Costa Rica. I think these may be of interest my readers and these are not covered on the main web site.

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The Price of Gasoline in Costa Rica

August 6th, 2007

Occasionally I get word from my kids in the states about how high the price of gasoline has become. While I sympathize of course, I can’t really get too empathetic as I watch almost weekly as gas prices here just get higher and higher, now reaching over $4.50 per gallon for super.

Yup… super is now selling at 620 colones per liter and that translates to $4.51 per gallon at service stations throughout Costa Rica. All service stations here must sell at the same price. Regular gasoline is now at 584 colons per liter or about $4.25 a U.S. gallon. Not much difference. Sadly, I use super. Ugh.

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Banks in Costa Rica

August 5th, 2007

For some time I have wanted to write about banking in Costa Rica. Although the overall view of banking in Costa Rica is covered in two location in The REAL Costa Rica, see here and also here, those two pages really provide only an overview of the Costa Rica banking system and how it functions. They do not speak of actually dealing with individual banks and how it is to do business on a daily basis and to interact with individual banks.

There are many banks here, and no one person could possible review all of them unless they actually had accounts in all banks, a scary thought indeed. I use three banks here, one state bank and two private banks, so today I am going to rate these banks based on my experiences over the past several years. This is a very long post, but I saw no way to shorten it.

If this topic interests you, then read on!  Also, see my follow up regarding BAC San Jose.

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