You would find many people, if not most, agree with your observations about the slow internet and the ability to acquire it. However, the article was focused on the developing areas where infrastructure is being improved as a result of residential development. For example, Playa Bejuco would not see internet or cable tv unless it was convienent for ICE to provide it but because of the increasing demands for communication services, ICE took advantage of becoming part of another international network. The new communications network similiar to ArcosNet on the Carribean side but runs along the Pacific directly from Los Angeles provides POP for the entire central Pacific area here.

If you are looking for like services for what you are accustomed to back home, San Jose has it all. But if you are here to travel in remote spots, you will be able to find internet but it would be slow because it is most likely a dial up connection. But in the newly developing areas such as Jaco, we are running on fiber optics for service delivery and then the tradition local distribution such as cable modems or ADSL where services are like what you would expect back home.

Increasingly, there are more people moving to Jaco to work remotely and are able to do so successfully. In the Jaco area we have not seen a spike here since 2005 and it locally affected Hermosa residents only. Outages are common but when 85% of your nations electricity is produced without adding tons of carbon smoke into the air, you would be willing to live with the occasional outages that range from momentary lapses to hours. Costa Rica powers 85% of it’s country via hydro-electric generation and the only reason the it is 85% is that remote areas are simply to far from the generation point to make it economically feasible to deliver. I would wager, if a country like the US had to rely on 85% of its power produced from water, you would see much more outages than you see here. Costa Rica has been doing this since the 50’s they know what they are doing and are doing a “heck of a job” at keeping us electrified.

Bruce