Greetings,

This post is mostly addressed to residents of San Jose. But any info is appreciated.

I'd like to move to San Jose for a few months or more and function with my business. I'd need to call the U.S. all day to keep up with my clients and need to have a U.S. number they can call to reach me. I'd just assume not tell them I'm in CR. I know just a little about Skype and not much more. My questions...

1. Is the phone company in CR functional and inexpensive to make calls to the states, and if not, is Skype functional enough to handle 40+ calls a day of approx 5min per call. (200 Min a day).

2. Is Escazu the default starting point for gringos to move to?

3. Is there mongering in areas other than downtown San Jose?

4. How hard would it be to set up my place before moving there to avoid downtime?

I'm sure someone will say "read the posts". However, I couldn't find anything about relocating and reading is not my hobby, mongering is...

Thanks, any info would be much appreciated.

Jonesie

Regardless of what country you move to, communications is pretty simple these days.

One, get the fastest internet access you can, most likely cable modem - for whatever reason, DSL service seems to suck in Latin America compared to cable modem.

Second, I would not recommend Skype - I would recommend Vonage or another similar provider instead. My reason for this is that Vonage is as simple as plugging a small router into your cable modem, then the Vonage converter into the router, then your regular phones into the Vonage converter. And you're done, maybe a little tweaking on the Vonage end but not much.

You have full phone funtionality - no headphones on the PC or a softphone, a real desk phone, probably the one you use now. You can have a number from whatever area code you want - probably port over your existing landline to Vonage. You can have multiple lines, although fax machines don't like Vonage much at all.

It's flat-rate US usage - I pay $19.99 for unlimited US/Canada calling. I also use it in Brasil since the international charge on Vonage is actually less than using my cell phone credits on my Brasil chip (with my Brasil number) in my GSM phone. Not sure if you would find the same in the CR but yes, at least for Brasil, it can be cheaper to using VOIP and pay for international dialing to someone's cell than to actually dial them using a local cell provider.

You should probably still have a land line from the telco in Costa Rica, for when Vonage is down due to your ISP - or just have the flexibility to go a few hours or even days without phone access.

You should have a Skype account as well, for those times when your ISP is down and you have to go to an internet cafe or something. Much easier than unhooking your vonage converter and your phone and dragging them around to find a connection. Just take your notebook over the internet cafe and phone away.

Cat,

Thanks, can I buy vonage service in Costa Rica, or do I need it before I go?

Do you live in CR, or just go often?

I wouldn't set foot in Costa Rica if someone paid me to. As far as Vonage, once you sign up payments are all done via credit card, autocharged each month. So sign up in the US, get the converter box shipped to your house, and then take it with you. Just make sure you disable the 911 service on it, since you could theoretically have police/emergency services dispatched to your old address if you accidentaly dialed 911 while in Costa Rica.

Which reminds me of step two, make sure you have a US address of some sort, either a house of a friend/family or a mail box at a Mail Boxes Etc or something like that. Basically something to still receive mail at, all bills should be done on-line but you still need a real address for renewing driver's license, taxes, etc.

Actually you don't need to have a PC for Skype anymore. I have a handset that I plug into a router just like Vonage and I pay $60 a YEAR with unlimited US and Canada calls and I have a phone number from the US.

I have a call center in Colombia using Skype that also has its own number and NO COMPUTER. They also have individual numbers from the US.

Vonage is too expensive.

Also as far as mail, I use http://www.earthclassmail.com

Good luck and I agree with Cat, there are many other better places than CR but I know the infrastructure is good for communications down there.

Sniper, do you have an email address I can reach you on privately?

I answered your PM. Feel free to email me.