Costa Rica coverage

Name: Costa Rica coverage
Creator: Orbislo
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quality tier B. Two networks, reliable 4G, 5G in places. Fine for everything except heavy tethering.

Mbps median

Mbps, slowest tenth

322

travellers measured

networks available

Which network you get

Carrier	Role	5G
Kolbi	Primary, used by default	4G only
Movistar	Failover, used when the primary degrades	4G only

You do not choose between them. If the network you are on gets congested we move you to the other one automatically, in the middle of your trip, and tell you afterwards.

A single carrier provider cannot make this move.

How we measure

Orbislo devices report connection quality on real traffic, never synthetic speed tests, because a speed test spends your data to tell us something we can measure for free. Reports carry the carrier, the radio type, the throughput and a coarse location of roughly one kilometre. No precise location is ever collected, nothing is published below a sample of 25, and you can switch the whole thing off in one tap.

Measured from real sessions, never from a speed test we ran ourselves.

How to read the Costa Rica numbers

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The median, 31 Mbps, is the middle of 322 real sessions: half were faster, half were slower. It tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 7 Mbps, is the one worth reading. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

None of this is a speed test. These are real sessions on real handsets belonging to travellers who left measurement switched on, aggregated over ninety days, and a country is not published at all until it has 25 of them.

What happens in Costa Rica when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over Kolbi and Movistar. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Questions about Costa Rica

Which network will I be on in Costa Rica?

Kolbi or Movistar. Orbislo moves you to whichever is performing better where you are standing, without asking you and without you noticing.

How fast is the data really?

Median 31 Mbps and tenth percentile 7 Mbps, from 322 real customer sessions. The tenth percentile is the number worth reading: it is what you get when the cell is busy.

Can I tether a laptop?

Yes, on every plan, at the same allowance as your phone data and at no extra cost. At 31 Mbps expect a tethered laptop in Costa Rica to be fine for email and documents and strained by video calls.

How current are these Costa Rica speeds?

They are a rolling ninety day window, recalculated daily from the sessions coming in. A carrier that upgrades its network shows up here within weeks rather than at the next annual review, and a country whose sample drops below 25 stops being published rather than showing you a stale number.

What if I get no signal at all in Costa Rica?

Open the app and use your free rescue data: 100 MB a month, on every account, in over 200 countries, and it works at a zero balance. It exists for exactly this moment, because needing data in order to buy data is not a situation anybody should be put in. If that cannot find a network either, message us from the app and we will sort it.

Will my phone work in Costa Rica?

If it supports eSIM and is not carrier locked, yes. We check your exact model before you pay and tell you plainly if it will not work, rather than taking the money and leaving you to find out on arrival.

Coverage nearby

Costa Rica plans from $36.89 North America regional plan Compare every country

How Costa Rica compares across North America

Speed rank: 7 of 10 destinations we sell in North America
Regional median: 33 Mbps
Consistency: The slowest tenth still reaches 23 percent of the median
Upstream networks: 2, Kolbi, Movistar
5G: 4G only
Next fastest nearby: Guatemala, 32 Mbps
Next slowest nearby: Honduras, 28 Mbps
Cities with their own page: 3: San Jose, La Fortuna, Tamarindo
tenth percentile: 7 Mbps
Behind these figures: 322 travellers, rolling 90 days

Nearby destinations in North America

United States: United States, 64 Mbps median, 2 networks
Canada: Canada, 58 Mbps median, 2 networks
Mexico: Mexico, 44 Mbps median, 2 networks
Panama: Panama, 36 Mbps median, 2 networks
El Salvador: El Salvador, 34 Mbps median, 2 networks
Guatemala: Guatemala, 32 Mbps median, 2 networks
Honduras: Honduras, 28 Mbps median, 2 networks
Nicaragua: Nicaragua, 26 Mbps median, 2 networks
Belize: Belize, 24 Mbps median, 2 networks

Cities with their own page

La Fortuna: La Fortuna Arenal Airport, nearest airport FON, 7 km from La Fortuna
San Jose: Tobías Bolaños International Airport, nearest airport SYQ, 7 km from San Jose
Tamarindo: Nosara Airport, nearest airport NOB, 41 km from Tamarindo