Enough is enough. Personally I am a little tired of the all posts about cell phone use in Costa Rica.
Not that many in a while. So I took a little time and compiled the following information for EVERYONE TO READ. It is by no means complete but should give everyone and idea of what to do and expect. I have also included some useful links at the end and a link to a map showing where your phone will and will not work due to coverage, not network issues.
I.C.E. ( Pronounce EE SAY) Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad is the primary provider of all telecommunications in Costa Rica. ICE is also not one of the more reliable networks as they have been known to go down and nothing works, including land lines. ( It happened this past week for 2 days and there was little or no coverage at all for land lines or cell phones.)
The bottom line is if your phone is a tri band, which most phones are, and you are part of one of the big 4 in the US your cell phone WILL work. A standard tri band phone uses 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz for voice, a quad band phone adds the 850 MHz to the frequencies. If your phone uses 3G only it may not work as ICE is slowly incorporating this into their network.
2 Things
YOU MUST DO BEFORE trying to use your phone:
1) Make sure your carrier has unblocked the international calling block feature of your phone. Most carriers do not charge for this, if they do find a new carrier.
2) Make sure your phone settings are set for automatically detecting the network. How to do this varies from phone to phone. Consult your owner’s manual or call your provider for assistance.
Upon arrival turn on your phone and it should detect the ICE network. Give it a few minutes to detect it. If it doesn’t, manually search for the network with your phone and then select it. It should work now. If it doesn’t find the ICE network your phone is not compatible and it will not work or you have international calling blocked.
ICE has a monopoly on the phone system for the time being so it should be the only network your phone can detect. The good news is you do not have to dial +506 when making a call in CR, just dial the number as if it were a CR phone.
Rates/Charges vary from company to company but generally you will pay between $1.99 to 3.99 per minute when calling FROM Costa Rica to the US, less when calling from the U.S.. It does not matter whether it is a land line or cell phone. Some carriers do charge less when calling a land line but, in general you’ll pay the same rate. Some carriers do have international calling plans where the rates are dramatically less regardless of the country. Check your carrier’s web site and find out the rates they charge.
Depending on your carrier, text messaging is 50/50 and ICE does not broadcast caller ID internationally. In other words if you call to the states your caller ID may not show up. 800 numbers are not free but you are not charged as much.
ICE is slowly moving away from the older GDSM type of phone and is moving towards the GSM type phone. GDSM is the old style where the phone is programmed, GSM and 3G are the newer style where you insert a SIMS card. 3G was used more for data transmission, but it is being used by more companies for voice too. 3G will soon become the standard replacing GSM. Europe and Asia are predominantly 3G for all cell phone use.
In general, you need to be a resident to get a CR phone number or at least know a resident. This is changing. As more and more lines open up you may be able to rent a cell phone for your stay but buying a SIMs card is not likely for a while.
The following are some useful links that may answer some of your outstanding questions.
http://www.gsmworld.com Main page for general information about coverage and other things
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/how_roaming_works.shtml How roaming works
http://www.t-mobile.com/International/R ... mWorldwide
T-Mobile website for international rates. Just enter the country name and the rates appear.
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/inter ... lltoaction Similar to the T-Mobile site.
http://www.suncom.com/features/internat ... oaming.jsp Table showing the rates for international calling.
ICE specific.
Operator Name: I.C.E. (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad)
Network Name:I.C.E.
Technology: GSM 1800
Network Status: Live December 2002
Published Roaming Agreements with ICE
AT&T Mobility GSM 850 Live
AT&T Mobility 3G 850/1900 Live
Cincinnati Bell Wireless (Cincinnati Bell Wireless - Cincinnati, OH) GSM 900
SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc (SunCom AT&T - Knoxville) GSM 1900
SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc (SunCom AT&T - Richmond-Norfolk) GSM 1900
SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc (SunCom AT&T - Atlanta) GSM 1900
SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc (SunCom AT&T - Washington-Baltimore)
GSM 1900
SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc (SunCom AT&T - Charlotte-Greensboro-Greenvill) GSM 1900
T-Mobile USA, Inc GSM 1900
AT&T Mobility GSM 1900
Link to ICE coverage in Costa Rica.
http://www.gsmworld.com/cgi-bin/ni_map.pl?cc=cr&net=ic
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