Since late February, wireless carriers in Costa Rica have been rolling out new plans and schemes to capture the lucrative mobile voice and data segment. The three major wireless providers, Claro, Kolbi and Movistar are deploying different strategies to entice customers to shell out more money for faster broadband service; however, response thus far has been underwhelming.

In the battle over wireless supremacy in Costa Rica, former communications monopoly ICE fired the first shot with a February 25^th text message sent to Kolbi owners of 4G long term evolution (LTE) smartphones and tablets urging them to exchange their SIM cards (chips) for new ones that can connect to the upgraded network.

There were two initial problems with ICE’s strategy: iPhone 5s and 5c owners were not technically ready to enjoy LTE, and the cost, 24,000 colones per month for 10 Mbps, was prohibitive for a large number of customers. The latter issue was alleviated with a Kolbi option to enjoy 4G LTE periodically; for example 1,500 colones (about $3) for a 24-hour period in which the user would be able to download and stream at his or her pleasure. The former issue was solved with Apple’s iOS 7.1 (carrier update 16.1). Some lucky users in the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area (Spanish initials: GAM) reported downstream speeds of 9.68 Mbps.

In the meantime, Claro announced post-paid 4G on April 1^st at a cost of about $17 per 1 Gb with a minimum speed of 10 Mbps, although some users have reported far lower speeds. Amidst mounting complaints about poor signal coverage, low speeds and Apple’s Siri not working well with 4G in Costa Rica, ICE recently rolled out prepaid LTE plans so that users are not stuck paying nearly $50 per month for a data plan that barely gets a signal, let alone the promised speeds.

Movistar is reportedly racing against time to roll out 4G LTE offerings, but with ICE planning to sanction users who consume more than 6 Gb of data per month and Movistar already doing so for 3G users, consumer expectations are low. Not long ago, mobile phone users in Costa Rica enjoyed unlimited wireless data at some of the lowest prices in the world, but that is no longer the case. The status quo is actually making some smartphone users long for the halcyon days of the ICE monopoly.