Internet

The answer to internet access will depend upon exactly where you live.  There are different providers throughout the island.

My experience has been that internet service can be unreliable (Liberty).  Frequent outages due to weather or cable maintenance issues.  The more rural areas typically have few choices in providers.

I tried the satellite system when I lived in Arizona, it was crap. Sent it back.

Depends on your meaning of reliable and the company that services your location. Outside of the metro area you are likely to find few locations that provide Internet service.

Each community / part of a community is likely to have a single service provider in many cases. You use what you got or use your data plan on your phone when you loose your ISP.

Only some areas in the metro area have superb speed, expect 10 megs in most places and in others 2 megs of speed.

There are companies that will provide you with satellite service, expect to pay a lot for it and have a metered service.

Some companies have good speed and stay up most of the time, but if you have an issue, they may have horrendous customer service. By the way, hope you speak Spanish, an English speaker is not always available.

Without a specific address it is hard to say who will service your place.

As to data plans for your phone, Verizon does not play in PR, you are roaming if you use Verizon, I had nothing but issues but others tell me no problem with their service. Then you have AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, they all seem to do fine in PR. AT&T seems to be recommended the most.

If all else fails, you can go to Burger King or another restaurant that has free wifi.

assuming there is power for the cell phone towers, for the ISP's to use and for the business location offering the service.

Power is more unreliable than Internet.

In my area we have Liberty, (so, so)  Clario (poor reputation, no experience with it)  and another new provider "Innovative communications solutions"  PR wifi.  The local rep claims good service, but I have no experience with them, I think they use some type of satellite connection?   PM me for contact info if interested.

We had less than stellar performance/service from Liberty  (you can read my past experiences in older posts) - ours would go out 3-5 times per week for several hours each time.  Very frustrating when doing schoolwork.

When your service is connected, check your hardware - apparently we got recycled hardware, so when I replaced the splitter and coax, things got a little bit better, but still had to deal with the outages.

Thanks everyone!  It's about 75% what I get now, but it's very reliable.  Here's what I found on-line about PR's speeds.

http://www.dospeedtest.com/speedtest-re … erto-Rico/

I'm sure that is for metro San Juan though. Might be around Corozal.  How is it in the mountains? Probably not good, I imagine. I could use tether with my T-mobile, but if there were internet cafes might make more sense to just drive to SJ once a week.  But nobody's mentioned internet cafes - do they exist?  I guess I will have to look into whether T-mobile has unlimited data streaming packages.

I can get 3MB for $30 with PR-wifi.   I think with 3MB you can watch movies??   

I am not aware of Cafes but I do not visit metro area.

Some places like McDonald and some coffee shops have internet service, be aware that even in the states some places like that may limit you to only use http and https (port 80 and 443) outbound so if you need other ports they may or may not work for you. I really do not know.

Sitka how that plan works?
Do you get wifi everywhere in the island, your home or is that only for a phone?

ReyP wrote:

I am not aware of Cafes but I do not visit metro area.


Sitka how that plan works?
Do you get wifi everywhere in the island, your home or is that only for a phone?

Waiting for PR wi-fi to answer my questions on email.  I only know they offer service in Hatillo, at the house.

I live in the mountains close to Lares, here and use a company called  Dish4Net, I've been with them now for almost 3 years and they have been gradually improving,i  pay for 2MBS (but they can go up to 10), and don't have many issues with outages, however they do occur on occasion. They specialize in providing service for remote communities here. Customer service has been above avg for PR and they have a few English speaking reps.  Send me a PM if you would like more details. Like others have posted, when in doubt go to Burger King or McDonald's.

Thanks all! 

Hope to be making a scouting trip soon and will inquire more after that.  You're all being very helpful and it's much appreciated.

For me in the mountains of Caguas we have no choice but to rely on our cell phone data for internet. It can be quirky but so far it's done the job. But if you need to upload/download big files it would be a nightmare and would eat up all your data.

We have ATT "unlimited" which is just really 22 gigs for each of us and 10 gigs more on a wifi box. But up here LTE is really slow so I have to change my phone settings to 4G which works ok. Unfortunately our wifi box is dedicated LTE so most of the time it's not even usable. But it's good to have as a backup if our phone data is running low and sometimes works ok.

If anyone knows if one can change the settings on the wifi box to 4G I'd appreciate it.

Lately, the last two years or so many small local providers have been popping up all over the island.
They basically serve the "last mile" and do that wireless. It's microwave they use btw and not Wifi. Wifi is limited to maybe 100' in perfect conditions, Microwave works over many miles.
To make this work your location needs to have  direct line of sight to one of he towers where the ISPs put their antennas, connect it to a router and from there to a fiber broadband provider. Most of times Liberty but there are others.

I've been having my internet connection from one of those new local ISPs and it's working pretty good. When I started with them they were  using Liberty and that was not the best thing. They now changed to another provider and it's pretty good.

Richvid0, they guys I use should also be available in your location. Check with your neigbors or look if there are any house with a small (2' or so)  dish antenna that looks like it's pointed horzontally. Others use a mesh like antenna like this one:



If you see any of these talk to the people who live there and ask who their internet provider is.

Gary wrote:

Lately, the last two years or so many small local providers have been popping up all over the island.
They basically serve the "last mile" and do that wireless. It's microwave they use btw and not Wifi. Wifi is limited to maybe 100' in perfect conditions, Microwave works over many miles.
To make this work your location needs to have  direct line of sight to one of he towers where the ISPs put their antennas, connect it to a router and from there to a fiber broadband provider. Most of times Liberty but there are others.

I've been having my internet connection from one of those new local ISPs and it's working pretty good. When I started with them they were  using Liberty and that was not the best thing. They now changed to another provider and it's pretty good.

Richvid0, they guys I use should also be available in your location. Check with your neigbors or look if there are any house with a small (2' or so)  dish antenna that looks like it's pointed horzontally. Others use a mesh like antenna like this one:

https://www.foryourpics.com/images/2017 … Image2.jpg

If you see any of these talk to the people who live there and ask who their internet provider is.

Thanks Gary. Will do.

Does ATT limit the amout of data you can use for a hotspot?

annabfalter wrote:

Does ATT limit the amout of data you can use for a hotspot?

It depends on your plan. Best talk to AT&T.

We have AT&T pay as you go, 6gb of data per month. After you have used up your purchased plan allotment your data is throttled until the next billing cycle or you can purchase more data a la carte. Doesn't matter how you are using that data.

We switch to 4NET about 4 months ago. Best change we ever did! Their service is excellent and it had never gone down. Not even during the hurricane we lost connection.

where is 4NET available?

Sitka wrote:

where is 4NET available?

http://www.4netpr.com/

Here is the coverture area: http://4netpr.com/cobertura/2014-05-26-16-49-52