Businesses, including hotels, real estate agencies, tour operators and developers, to name a few, need to plan their long-term Internet strategies today. Social media is transforming the world dramatically, and a simple Web site is just not good enough anymore.

Web sites, online advertising and Internet promotion have for many years been the primary means to market a product or service in Costa Rica to an international audience. The Internet is cheaper than print advertising, and it is an effective medium to reach a mass audience in the United States and other parts of the world, especially those persons in the planning stages of a Costa Rica vacation or retirement.

Being in the middle of a real estate down cycle might not seem to be the best time to promote or spend money on marketing, but most experienced businesses know otherwise. The things one does during the down market will determine how well they do in the up market.

Small business owners in Costa Rica who are looking to weather the storm are also best advised to start thinking about their long-term marketing plan. While it is difficult to earn a profit today in Costa Rica from the money spent on advertising or a slick Web site, there will be a time when vacations and dream homes on the beach will become hot commodities again.

In the old days of the Internet a Web site might retain a small fraction of viewers who would bookmark and quickly forget a page. If one was lucky, a prospect might send an e-mail message requesting more information and get added to a mailing list.

The good news is now, thanks to social media, a business can see a long-term return on an investment in Internet marketing. A measure of success is not what is sold today, but how many people subscribe to a blog, newsletter, Facebook or Twitter. Once the audience is captured, it is just a matter of occasionally reminding them about a product or service with an entertaining article, photo or video.

The trick to turn on social media is to get these kinds of marketing efforts beyond traditional e-mail campaigns and onto a page where the entire world can search, link or comment on the content. E-mail is still a powerful distribution method, and leveraging it with a blog allows readers to express their approval by posting to their Facebook, Twitter or own personal blog.

Personal endorsement is at the core of social networking and is effective because often people trust the recommendations and opinions of their friends. Social media accelerates this kind of interaction through the Internet, and its growth erodes the value of traditional advertising. This is why Facebook is now the No. 2 Web page on the Internet, according to the Alexa rating service, and social media has replaced pornography as the No. 1 use of the Internet.

Setting up a blog and promoting it is easier than ever thanks to services like Blogger (blogspot.com), which is rated the No. 8 Web page on the Internet by Alexa. Unlike a traditional Web site, a blog publication does not require any knowledge of things like html code, and expensive software like Dreamweaver and Frontpage.

While a professional may design a blog, the work of updating and publishing it is something that a business owner may do personally or hire out to another person at a much lower rate.

Free services like Feedblitz and Google Feedburner give a business the system to take e-mail subscribers from a web page, distribute a blog, and manage the technical and legal issues of mass e-mail.

Apart from the opt-in mailing list, it is a good idea to create profiles on services like Facebook and Twitter and then post links and new blog articles. These services work in parallel to the e-mail list, and many people prefer them for their ease of use and rapid social interaction.

A new blog or a Facebook page alone will not get much traffic and needs to be promoted using advertising. The important thing is when the market comes, a business will be starting with an active e-mail list with thousands of prospects. The world Internet audience will more clearly understand who has the established presence in Costa Rica.

Competitors, if they are not doing the same, will start from zero with a cold list of prospects and little social media reputation. The other guys, even if they have been on the ground for years, will be viewed as newcomers by the mass media, and pay high ad rates in a hot market just to stay afloat.

In summary, business owners with Web sites need to upgrade them by adding a blog, setup an opt-in mailing list, and promote on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, not to mention A.M. Costa Rica. The trick to keep a readership audience is to publish a few times a month and entertain but not overwhelm.

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Internet social networking accelerates life in the 21st century. It also proposes challenges to everyone doing business in Costa Rica.

More importantly, all the negative comments about Costa Rica are going to kill the country’s tourism future because the negative runs rampant through social networks. The country’s marketing system better catch up fast. The country is plagued with bad reports, from out-of-control property thefts to Americans getting beaten up at popular tourism destinations.

Social networking is the practice of expanding social contacts through connections among individuals, and although the process is as old as civilization itself, the Internet has accelerated the pace while increasing the amount of information that can be shared.

For those living in Costa Rica or considering relocation here, the Internet social networks are as important as ever. While in the past much of the information has been disseminated by those with a profit motive, the Internet social networks allow individuals to share first-hand information and experiences. A person is now able to consult instantly with dozens of other persons to determine if retirement in Costa Rica would fit their lifestyle or if a particular doctor, dentist or real estate broker has a good reputation.

Social connection is especially valuable for a newcomer who lacks roots in a new country, language skills and years of assimilation that can only come from growing up or being educated in the culture.

While many have been aware of networks like Facebook, Myspace and Youtube it’s possible that living in Costa Rica has distracted expats from the magnitude of change that is occurring on a truly global scale. Collectively these three social networks receive 250 million unique visitors per month, and have been in existence for no more than six years. ABC, NBC and CBS combined can only manage to reach 10 million viewers per month.

Radio as the first form of electronic mass communication took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million. Television accomplished the same in 13 years while the Internet took four years. Facebook reached its first 50 million people in just two years, and presently there are 400 million registered and active users on the network. To put this in more perspective, this is a number that exceeds the total population of the United States.

Facebook is rated as the No. 2 page on the Internet by the Alexa ranking service, and is exceeded only by Google, which presently serves 76 billion Internet searches per month. Google served just 2.7 billion searches per month in 2006, and the increased volume of information is not and probably never will be a problem for massive networks of computers.

The effects of Internet social networking are particularly visible through American expats, who are informal ambassadors to nations like Costa Rica. One expat in Costa Rica can link to hundreds of relatives and former high school and university classmates, which expand exponentially. This reason alone is enough for the Costa Rican government to really consider how its treatment of expatriates has an effect on tourism.

The country is quickly reaching the point where one well-connected expat with a negative attitude can deter hundreds of people from vacationing in Costa Rica. No amount of expensive promotion on the part of the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo can counteract the damage that hundreds of expats talking about things like pollution or crime can do.

Nations like Costa Rica, unfortunately, are in danger of falling so far behind in bandwidth that the speed of now marginally broadband ADSL connections will resemble the dial-up Internet of the 1990s. As the former telecom monopoly struggles to implement 3G Internet service, the United States already enjoys 4G services in every major market.

One typical 4G phone can provide an Internet connection for up to 5 devices, and it is expected that the typical package will deliver between 5 and 12 Mbps by the end of the year. Following the dynamics of smartphone and social networks like Twitter is vital because it is predicated that in just 10 years mobile phone will replace the desktop computer as the dominant Internet device.

Web pages that do not automatically adapt their layouts to smartphones are in danger of becoming as obsolete as print media. Equally so, it is vital that any Web site with a future embrace social networking in a meaningful way. It’s no longer good enough to simply link to a profile on a social network without providing systems for commentary or social interaction directly on the page.

Some experts predict that the traditional Web site as we know it and even many blogging platforms will fade away in the coming years under a wave of information, much of which will be generated by social networks. While professionals talk about the loss of journalistic standards or declining quality of information, the more successful media outlets look for ways to aggregate information from social networks and moderate discussion.

At this point, no one has emerged as a leader in the realm of social networking among the English-speaking community in Costa Rica. The U.S. Embassy has a Facebook page. However its Web site is not a portal for social networking. For example, the Spanish-language news publication La Nación allows readers to comment on the news on its Web page in real time through a Twitter account. No English-language outlet of comparable professional standards provides any level of instant social collaboration.

Print media is truly dead, and while Costa Rica does have one English-language print newspaper the reasons for its continued existence seem ambiguous. Time is also gradually eroding the base of English-speaking people who are still willing to participate in the newsprint culture.

The average American teen on average sends 2,272 text messages per month and can be expected to never subscribe to a print newspaper during his or her lifetime. The next generation will in all probability view any form of print media as an expensive waste of environmental resources. Social networking is vital if this generation is ever to know much of a place like Costa Rica.

Costa Rica better clean up its act and get into the 21st century because the days of traditional media are numbered. Most important, the country needs to clean up its act, because its dirty laundry is aired instantly on the Internet, and there is little opportunity to counter the negative impact.

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There is great news for expats and tourists in the cloud. Speaking of cloud computing, that is. Most expats — people of other nationalities who have made Costa Rica their home — do not have a clue what the term cloud computing means even though the concept could greatly change their lives, especially those who would like to make Costa Rica their home or at least visit the country more often.

Cloud computing is nothing more than working on the Internet using software and services that are provided on the Internet. Google is one of the foremost pioneers of these new services. Gmail, Google’s e-mail service, was just the beginning of its huge other offerings in software.

Two examples in Google’s menu are its calendar and document applications. However, the company offers other applications as well. Many are free and some others have charges associated with their use.

Why is this important to expats and tourists?
The answer is simple. It means one does not need to work from the confines of an office any longer or even in any physical location. The Internet, cloud computing and Software as a Service — commonly referred to as SaaS — truly sets people free.

Over the last two years there has been an explosion of services available to professionals on the Internet which allow them to work from anywhere. These new services increase as well the usefulness of smart cellular telephones, iPhones and Windows Mobile enabled phones, to enhance working from the cloud.

Many expats and tourists who live in or visit Costa Rica are some kind of professional. At least they have retired or are vacationing from some kind of work that can still use their expertise. This knowledge is marketable, and it can be sold and invoiced using the cloud. Many of these services are geared toward those who sell time rather than things, but what a great thing to sell: One’s knowledge in the form of time.

Here is how to turn time into money, using the Internet and cloud computing while surfing the afternoon at Playa Guiones or watching the sun set on one of the other beautiful beaches of Costa Rica.

The major player in the cloud computing world is Google. However, new companies are emerging daily to fill in the gaps where Google is weak. This is especially true in the area of invoicing and collecting for one’s billable time.

The leader of the pack in using the Internet to bill for almost anything including one’s time is FreshBooks. This company was started by people billing for Internet design work, but the company has exploded into one that is changing the way people think about the way they live and earn a living.

Here is an example of this concept and the use of FreshBooks:

Joe Tourist came to Costa Rica for the weekend from his office in New York to surf the afternoon at Playa Guiones, a famous surfing spot at Nosara. After long, hard surfing, he gets a call from a client from the United States and spends more than an hour on his cellular telephone in a deep consultation. As soon as the call is finished, Joe hits sends invoice from his smartphone, a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, using MiniBooks, a component of the FreshBooks system, and the client is sent an invoice immediately via e-mail for the consultation.

Depending on what one sells, there are many other options available to bill for services and things using the cloud. The major players in billing professional time are Clio, Rocket Matter, and Bill4Time. FreshBooks and Harvest are the leaders in billing for other types of time-related matters and for items. All the companies are growing very fast, and their offerings are increasing exponentially this year.

Now here is an interesting quandary: Is it legal to come to Costa Rica and bill for your time using the Internet or smartphones? Tourists are not suppose to work here. Many legal residents are also restricted and cannot work legally. Is the Costa Rican government entitled to collect income taxes on revenue produced in this country by foreigners using the cloud? Interesting questions for sure. Undoubtedly, these queries will have the Costa Rican government as well as the country’s tax authorities in a huge dilemma for years.

Here is a prediction. Cloud computing will be great for Costa Rican real estate values. Again, the rational is simple. People will not be tied to living in any particular place.

Costa Rica’s 3G Internet system is off the ground, and it is getting better. In the next three to five years it should be great. The system works almost anywhere in the country today.

All this may sound a bit techie for some, but really it is not. It is all pretty simple stuff, and it is getting easier to use by the day. Cloud computing is here, and it is just going to get better and easier to use. This translates into more mobility for those who want to come to Costa Rica and live or have a second home here. This also translates into a bright future for the country and higher real estate value in the years to come.

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The internet is as wonderful as it is evil. The dark side is where predators lurk waiting for the unsuspecting innocent to fall into their traps. These creeps lie in wait to menace adults and children alike. The internet, cellular telephones and text messaging can work together to steal, maim and even kill.

Many expats have come to Costa Rica with families including their children. Others have started families here. In a modern family, having several computers in the household is not uncommon. Giving children cell phones at a very early age is also normal practice. They are great little devices to keep tabs on kids.

The Internet extended the dating services of the past century into a whole new world, social networking. These networks have grown geometrically on the web. Adults and kids use them to find new friends and relationships. Some adults find their mates nowadays using the tools of cyberspace.

Most people hide behind avatars — an icon or figure used as a personification of the computer operator — and use false information when using social networks. This is good practice but does not curb the danger and can even exacerbate it.

Here is a wakeup call to expats with children in Costa Rica. Internet predators are out to get them. They know all the tricks. Expats here are usually of retirement age because they came to retire in this country. Many of them did not count on having a new family in this country, but it happened. Because they are of retirement age, many are not familiar with the Internet or text messaging on cell phones so they do not understand how much danger their kids are facing every day.

This is the scenario. It usually — but not always — starts with a social network on the Internet.

Children take pictures of themselves using webcams on the computers in the house. Webcams are little cameras that are attached to desktop computers but are usually incorporated into portables. Kids open an account — lying through the form questionnaires about their age — on Hi5, MSN, Facebook, or one of the other social networks. Here they post the pictures they took in minutes and add their e-mail address.
Kids all over the world do the same thing.

However, these days children are taking very seductive inappropriate pictures of themselves and using them. High school girls and even grade school children have contests to see who can make the “best” sexy pictures. Sure other kids and classmates write to them, but so do the perverts. The Internet scum bags of the world. Adults usually do not know who they are really communicating with on social networks so how do adults expect their children to know?

The next step in the predators plan is to get as much information as they can from their victims, including phone numbers — especially cellular phone numbers — addresses, workplace information and in the case of children the schools they attend. These potential molesters usually make up a story to get to meet a child or just wait in hiding around a school to snatch them.

What adults and children do not realize is these Internet nut cases are sick people. They thrive on the bond they make with their victim. When the bond is broken — for example a parent discovers the problem — the person in some cases will physically hunt down their prey using the information provided to them over the internet or telephone.

People are not always on or near a computer, but they are usually stuck to their cellular telephone. This is true for children too. Text messaging from cellular telephones is a social network of its own.
If a predator has both avenues of communication to a victim, they have many options to lure kids.

Expats with children or a young wife in Costa Rica need to protect them from these hazards as much as they can. Here are some tips to protect young people, based on extensive research:

This expat is a computer nerd with 30 years experience and a registered Microsoft Partner with all the latest systems and technologies. One of these wackos got through the extensive precautions setup to protect his kids from the evils of the Internet, and that is the reason for this article.

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Everyone knows what a test pilot is. How about a technology tester? In this day and age, it is almost the same thing. “Pilot program” is the term used today.

In Information Technologies, development stage engineering is broken down into three parts: The alpha stage is the beginning stage of a technology when it is in a very rough form. The beta stage is an active debugging or problem-solving phase, when a technology is heavily tested in preparation for its market introduction. The stable stage is when a technology is ready.

About five year ago, GrupoICE was looking for testers for advanced Internet also referred to as ADSL, short for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, a technology that allows more data transmission over existing copper telephone lines than is normally possible. ADSL supports data rates from 1.5 to 9 Mbps when receiving data (known as the downstream rate) and from 16 to 640 Kbps when sending data (known as the upstream rate).

GrupoICE is Costa Rica’s monopoly over communications and electricity. It is made up of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), Radiográfica Costarricense S.A (RACSA) and Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL).

At the time, deciding to sign up along with 600 other techno junkies was easy. However, years have passed and being a tester for ICE has been no piece of cake. Costa Rica is famous for implementing something new and then oversaturating the use of it until it blows up and does not work anymore.

The evolution of ADSL in Costa Rica has been no exception. At first, the system did not work very well because there were no qualified trained personnel. After a year of trial and error configurations with ICE technicians, the service stabilized. However, while using inadequate equipment, ICE started to add more and more customers because they wanted to start charging. Once the monopoly did, things started to fall apart again. Conversations with insiders at the phone company found the famous Tico hitch, too many subscribers connected to a test system.

Today there is a new problem. The service is expanding so fast ICE is running out of certain IP addresses and converting customers from private to public numbers without informing them.

Each machine connected to the Internet has a number known as an Internet Protocol address (IP address). The IP address takes the form of four numbers separated by dots, for example: 123.45.67.890. The number identifies each sender or receiver of information that moves in a packet across the Internet. A packet is the fundamental unit of a block of data in modern computer networks.

One public IP address is replacing the five private addresses assigned to most customers over the past years. This fact is techno mumbo jumbo to most people but it is a nightmare if it is changed without notice.

This was the case at the Cybercafé Las Arcadas in downtown San José, the morning of Nov. 24 when ADSL just stopped working. The Cybercafé is the preferred Internet café for tourists downtown. Frantic phone calls to the support line of ICE ended with technicians stating nothing was wrong and everything should work. Late in the evening, an ICE employee showed up with a new ADSL modem.

The ICE employee said “Plug in this device (a new modem) and your Internet will work.” It did not work. “Give me a momentito.” He went and pulled his personal modem out of the trunk of his car. “This one will really work, but I need it back in the morning.” At around 1 a.m. the light bulbs went off. ICE had changed the IP addresses. This meant new equipment was immediately necessary.

Calls to local suppliers only turned up SOHO equipment and bottom-of-the-line hardware at that. SOHO means small office or home not a cybercafé with many users. Trying desperately to explain this fact to sales persons turned out to be a joke. It was obvious most of them were not even out of puberty.

A full week passed with no Internet connection, ICE personnel did not care in the least. ADSL hardware suppliers lacked knowledge and adequate devices. Being a test pilot felt pretty lonely. The financial loss was large.

ADSL is here to stay and ICE will probably get it right given enough time. When it works, it is the best. The problem is the lousy service provided by the country’s communications monopoly.

William Burroughs in his book “The Naked Lunch” put it very well when describing monopolies: Never give anything away for nothing. Never give more than you have to give. Always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait. Always take everything back if you possibly can.

What to do if you are an ADSL subscriber and this happens to you? Say a prayer and call 119, the ICE support line for ADSL. Tell them you are going to support the Free Trade Treaty vigorously if they do not fix your problem immediately. If they are unresponsive within 24 hours, call Costa Rica’s new consumer complaint unit at 206-1010.

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Superfast Internet in limbo for weeks

The phrase “Internet Hell” is a slogan to give fair warning to users of the Internet in Costa Rica.

The phrase also offers consolation to all who experience difficulties with the Internet here. Most expats in this country could write this piece themselves, each with his or her own twist.

High technology is wonderful. The Internet is wonderful. But there is a dark side. Computers and the Internet play with basic physiological buttons in everyone. They are very similar to nasty additive drugs.

Costa Rica delivers Internet to users via three basic means: Radiográfica Costarricense S.A., Costa Rica’s Internet monopoly, known to many as Dante’s assistant on earth, ISDN, the local phone company’s version of Internet access, also known to the few who have it as the devil’s assistant on earth, and a more sinister ADSL, worse than the Satan himself. ADSL is slowly going to creep into every ones life. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, known as ICE, has promised to launch the ADSL service countrywide this year, thereby becoming a major competitor to its RACSA subsidary.

ADSL is wonderful. That is the problem. When one gets used to instant gratification, instant communication, online movies and no barriers of any kind on the Internet, there is no hope for sanity ever again.

The problem is that without warning, ADSL stops working, all of a sudden, with no explanation from the powers that be. Now, more frequently, there is just a void. No Internet, no communications, nothing is left but a dumb computer screen to stare at. The need to make contact with someone again, using the computer, starts building in the psyche. Complete insanity is a certainty.

Where does one find a virgin to sacrifice to one of Costa Rica’s volcanoes to fix the problem? This solution is hard to realize in this country, about as impossible as calling someone who should know what is going on, someone who knows how to fix a problem with the service.

Ads are all over the media in Costa Rica that ADSL will soon be available without a prescription to all that want this powerful drug. There is no antidote to this euphoria producing technological advance.

However, for the past two weeks, all those in Costa Rica’s pilot program of advanced internet, ADSL, have had serious problems. The country is installing systems, relays, server clusters and infrastructure everywhere to give everyone who wants it access to the service.

However, basic DNS resolution is not working. DNS means Domain Name System (or Service). DNS translates alphabetic domain names into numeric IP addresses. For example, the domain http://www.amcostarica.com translates to 65.98.37.176. Computers do not talk to each other with words or letters but with numbers. DNS is like an address book that a computer needs to go to in order to find another computer. If DNS is not working, computers are lost.

The BIG problem is that the bosses at ICE installing ADSL care nothing about the poor subscribers and tell them nothing about what is going on. Costa Rica is basing the whole implementation of advanced Internet in Costa Rica on putting out fires. However, when you call to report a fire, no one really wants to know about it. The latest trick is changing support numbers frequently so no one can report problems.

To those with perseverance, it is possible to fish out the support people in hiding. Now the best part…. When you find one, they have absolutely no clue on how the system should work.

Hundreds of thousands of emails to and from people in Costa Rica have been lost to cyberspace. More importantly, many have not even been able to send e-mail or connect to Web sites. Hotmail, MSN and other important services had just not worked for periods of up to days.

If ICE is going to hook the country on Internet, super fast Internet, offering spontaneous communications, and instant gratification, it needs to work!

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When it comes to Internet, ADSL is incredibly fast. It will give you a whole new world of content at your fingertips — in a flash. Whether it’s the latest music, a CNN news video, or a streaming movie, ADSL will beam it to you at lightning speed.

The only thing that isn’t fast about it is its rollout in Costa Rica. It is talked about much like the new highway from San José to Orotina which has been “just about done” for over 20 years.

Believe it or not, the problem started some 80 years ago — way before the Internet.

In 1914, Telefunken, a German company, asked the Costa Rican government for authorization to commercialize wireless communications on an international level. As with most government projects even today, there was immediate opposition, which caused a counter bid by a subsidiary of United Fruit Co., the Tropical Radio Telegraph Co.

The Costa Rican government, after some debate in congress and influenced by the events of the time, World War I, decided communications to be too important to the well-being of Costa Rica and decided to monopolize telegraphy and wireless telephony with Law Nº 34 of April 10, 1920.

However, one year later Law Nº 47 of June 25, 1921, the concession to exploit the market was put into the hands of two private Costa Rican citizens who were electrical engineers, José Joaquín Carranza Volio and Ricardo Pacheco Lara. The concession was to last for 25 years with an automatic extension for 20 more years. They began the company Compañía Radiográfica Internacional de Costa Rica.

The Costa Rican government via Law Nº 3293 of June 18, 1964 mandated that once the concession ended in 1965, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, ICE, the electric company, was to take over the firm formed in 1920. ICE was not ready to do this, so it made a deal with the company holding the concession and created a new company called Radiográfica Costarricense S.A, or RACSA as it is known today. Each entity was to own 50 percent of the new company, and the concession was extended for 13 more years.

At this point, in 1964, the playing field was divided into two camps. RACSA controlled the rights to telex, telegraph, video conferencing, data transmission, facsimile, data and value-added services. ICE controlled the rights to the telephone land lines.

Here is where it gets messy.

ADSL, short for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, is a way to transmit data over traditional copper telephone lines at speeds higher than were previously possible. Data travels downstream faster than it travels upstream, hence the name “asymmetric.” The copper telephone lines were and still are part of ICE and not RACSA.

RACSA, on the other hand, controls the backbone to the Internet, because, based on its original mandate, it manages everything in connection with the outside world.

In 2001 RACSA connected to the the MAYA-1 submarine cable and in 2003 to the Arcos-1 cable. Both these cable systems gave RACSA access to high speed Internet. So why are most people in Costa Rica still using dial-up or cable connections?

Two different companies mean two different management styles, and, surprise, they can’t agree on the deployment of ADSL in Costa Rica. Most every other country in Latin America enjoys ADSL, and Costa Rica is eating their dust.

The Fundación Comisión Asesora en Alta Tecnología de Costa Rica (Fundación CAATEC), had high hopes for the country in its publication of 2001, rating Costa Rica above the United States in ADSL deployment.

This, today, is a pipe dream. ADSL still is just a pilot project. The technology has turned into an on-again off-again game. You call ICE one day, and employees say they will be installing ADSL in a week. Call a week later, and another employee says the project has been postponed for a year.

During the latest march against the Free Trade Agreement, ADSL was reduced to unusable levels by the employees as they used deliberate sabotage in support of the demonstration to put the service out of action for a long weekend.

Lately, there are so many problems with the connection and speeds with the existing ADSL in San José, companies need to have dial-up connections as backups and need to use them frequently. Once you are used to ultra fast Internet, dial-up is a frustration.

This problem is so typical in Costa Rica. Politics and infighting get in the way of real progress. And the bad news is that the situation doesn’t look like its going to get any better anytime soon. There is no good news in this arena.

Costa Rica is falling behind as the world becomes increasingly reliant on information technology and e-commerce. The country is at risk of becoming a “critical economy” as described by the Y2K Foundation and one that might not be able to keep up with the next phase of world economic growth.

How ADSL works

AM Costa Rica Graphic

The copper wires that are used to carry telephone lines into most homes and offices are capable of transmitting more information than is necessary to convey a telephone conversation. The extra bandwidth that the wire could support is wasted at the moment. ADSL takes advantage of this wasted bandwidth by using additional equipment to transfer data at a higher frequency than that used for voice calls. Ultimately ADSL ‘squeezes’ more capacity out of the same telephone line without interfering with your normal telephone services.

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