Best Internet Providers

3POSTS

15 years ago

Hi!聽 I'll be moving to the Rio Grande area in a few months and am starting to gather info on utilities and services.聽

Can anyone give me the lowdown on high-speed internet providers?聽 Or point me in the direction of good information?

Thanks for your help!

See also

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

15 years ago

Sand and Snow wrote:
Can anyone give me the lowdown on high-speed internet providers?

You have the choice of many possibilities, the most common being DSL and cable.
When your future home is in an area where cable is available that might be the most practical solution. Check with the real estate agent or landlord if the house/apartment has a access to cable TV and which company is providing the service. I think that Liberty is the main cable provider.
Another cable company is Choice:

DSL is available almost everywhere on the island. The largest provider is PRT, the Puerto Rico Telephone company. Their DSL division is Claro Internet. Here's the website:

Herisa Member

1POSTS

13 years ago

Be carefull in choosing A ISP in Puerto Rico. They give you less for much money and quality is much less then in Europe.I advise to choose a cable provider. Not choose for CLARO,聽 this is the worst ISP in Puerto Rico. Speed that offer is lower then agreed. Ever saw a ISP company witch no email? Well Claro is one of them, you only can reach them by telephone. Technical support (from RD) is below any level. Cannot resolve problems quick (my wife was without Internet for more then 2 weeks, seems normal to Claro. Hope you have found a ISP now that satisfy you. Not saw in previous post Onelink. onelinkpr.net/#/home

GreggK Serial expat

509POSTS

13 years ago

Guess it's a roll of the dice. I had bad luck with Choice and never any problems with Claro.

We're moving WHERE? Serial expat

322POSTS

13 years ago

ONELINK聽 is the most common cable/IP company on the north side of the island. There is Liberty and I believe there is a Direct TV service as well but it pretty much stinks and they lie about cancellation policies.聽聽Check out some of the deals; if you need聽 mobility maybe Sprint or At&T can hook you up with something: they have great deals thru either SAMS OR COSTCO.There is a guy at SAMS on KENNEDY Ave. who is amazing!聽 he can give you so much info about electronics and is always willing to help: I think his name is LUIS Pastina.聽聽 Also ask in RADIO SHACK.... if it's only for the home, most cable companies have a service.聽
Remember, it is an island and the weather can affect the service..
some days the service is perfect, then, for no apparent reason, it's out for a time....Oh, Well!!

Ramirongo Member

1POSTS

13 years ago

I agree!聽 Claro does not give you the agreed speed, it fluctuates and many times it drops so low that the internet communications colapses.聽 You have to wait a long time to get repair service if they must visit you.

James38 Member

3POSTS

11 years ago

Hi, been living in PR for a long time.聽 Best internet I have found is Aeronet wireless.聽 You need to check with them to see if they offer coverage where you are.

I hear there is a competitor with better rates, Cosonet, but I have not found them.

Others recommend Virgin Mobile
"I went to Radio Shack and got the Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go service, and I started with the smallest plan of $10 for 100 mb- to test at home. Its working great so far. Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint network and seems like coverage in Puerto Rico is excellent near the coast. Reliable wireless service is important for me. Hopefully it will still be this good during rough weather. "

osnetpr.com or aeronetpr.com are addresses I have found.聽 I use Aeronet and have had good results.聽 Reasonably rapid response to problems, no billing problems, friendly and competent.

James38 Member

3POSTS

11 years ago

Here is the info on Cosotnet (I had been given the wrong spelling cosonet)

I am going to look into their service.聽 Aeronet is giving me about 1mbps for $60/month.聽 Cosotnet price is $35 for that speed, and $40 for 2 mbps download and 1 mbps upload.

cosotnet.com/

tel. 787.809.0011

They offer digital phone and other services including tv

trekrider520 Serial expat

257POSTS

11 years ago

Hello - going to chime in here about Internet providers.聽 We use Liberty (formerly OneLink).聽 It went out last Saturday, so I called and got disconnected twice before giving up.聽 Called back on Sunday and was told that there was an outage in the area and they were working on it and to expect service back by the evening.聽 On Monday, it wasn't back, so I called in the afternoon and spent an hour on the phone speaking to 10 different people after getting hung up on and disconnected 10 different times.聽 Finally, the service center said that they would be to the house early on Tuesday morning.聽 Well, at 4:00PM they showed up.聽 They did a bunch of diagnostics and said that our splitter was bad.聽 Not sure about that since the technician originally said that there was an area outage.

Overall, the service is hit-or-miss.聽 It will be fine for a couple of hours, down for a couple of hours, and many times it is extremely slow.聽 In our neighborhood, Liberty is the only Cable/Internet provider, so we're pretty much stuck with their sporadic service and awful customer service.

If I were working from home and/or homeschooling, I'd have serious doubts about using Liberty.聽 I sent an e-mail to Liberty Global explaining the situation - I haven't received a response yet.

Hope this helps.

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#10

We used to have Claro DSL for some years and it was working OK, well, sort of.
From the end of last year the service got worse an worse and one of the technicians that came to try to fix it told us that the main cable to our rural area was bad and needed replacement. He also told that it wasn't likely that this would happen this year(!).

So we went shopping for alternatives.

Osnet looked promising. A neighbor is using it and has great speeds and very little problems. We visited their offices in Humacao and were about to sign up when we came across an offer that looked to good to be true.

Wireless 4G LTE from Sprint with speeds up to 30 Mb down and 8 Mb up! Coming from 2 Mb down and 512 Kb up that looked wonderful.
The only problem is that bandwith is limited in the contracts and if you exceed it you pay a lot extra.

Now, things are different if you have a business and a business account at a credit union (here in PR that would be one of the cooperativas) . In that case you can get an unlimited bandwith contract for 49.95/month.
Since we own a computer service business we ran to the local cooperative, opened a business account and now we are enjoying super high speeds.
An external antenna and a special router completed the setup.

We've been using this for almost four months now and it works like charm.

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#11

Thanks everyone for good advice. My husband was trying to contact Clark since we are in Quebradilla and the no. was wrong. So at least we have some leads.

Will advise what outcome was

kubla Member

19POSTS

11 years ago

#12

For the San Juan area there is an exciting new development in the works. A company called Optico Fiber is trying to startup in several areas a fiberoptic option for superfast internet (1giga !). They are trying to get people in the areas they want to start to sign up. I know that Ocean Park, Punta Las Marias, maybe condado and some other areas. It's a $10 refundable deposit (if they end up not having enough interest in your area or don't end up laying the cable for some other reason) to sign up as an interested person. Check out their website at - optico.criticalhub.com to see if your area is under consideration right now. This would be a great option for the island since all the other providers are intermittently slow, unreliable, uncooperative with customer service, frustrating, etc.

1 member reacted to this post

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#13

After we made an appt. With Choice, they came out & said that in our street there is no service. So now we will call Cosotnet & see what happens.

GreggK Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#14

Same thing happened to us when we lived in Moca. Choice didn't have a line on our street so they ran a new one from the nearby highway. It was quite comical to watch. Anyway, it never did work right so we switched to Claro.

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#15

That would work if we could reach Claro. They never answer their phone.

We called a couple of other companies and we have to get a call back but we may go with Hughes but they are super expensive.

My hubby was giving to call Liberty but I think.they are only in the San Juan area?

1 member reacted to this post

GreggK Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#16

Welcome to Puerto Rico. Get used to it. Just wait, you haven't seen anything yet!

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#17

tonie0750 wrote:
That would work if we could reach Claro. They never answer their phone.

That's normal. Trying to get something organized by phone doesn't work most of the times.
I'd go to a Claro shop or try to find a Claro booth in a mall or a store like Sam's Club.
Sign up there and with a little luck you'll have internet sometime next week. It could also take longer.

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#18

We finally went with Claro and had internet and phone installed yesterday. We will see his it goes.

When we get our t.v., we will call them for direct.TV Our stuff is on its way and I can't wait.They tell me that it takes 6 weeks and I am hoping for sooner

GreggK Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#19

Who moved your stuff? We used Monte and it took 4 weeks from Virginia via Philadelphia.

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#20

Well, we got Claro for internet and phone and right now it has it's ups and downs.

Sometimes it goes down if it rains and there is some wind and either times it is sunny and nice. So we just have to use it when it is up.

GreggK Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#21

Welcome to Puerto Rico. You never know what you are聽 going to get until you have it. Most of living there is learning how to deal with things that don't function the way you are used to. Is your water brown yet? I hear they are having problems with that in some areas.

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#22

So we still have Clark and it goes up & down all the time but we are dealing with it. They have called several times and my husband keeps telling them that the service sucks and they just want to take a survey on how our SVC is and how were we treated. If they got off their horse and fixed the problems with the SVC., then they would have happier clients who would want to switch.

The best thing is that the transformer box on the corner is all open to the elements and my husband told the guy and he said oh well.

Yes Gary, I have gotten used to many things here and no, we don't have brown water, hopefully never.

I don't think that I will ever get used to the slowness of everything here but I am dealing.

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#23

tonie0750 wrote:
Yes Gary, I have gotten used to many things here and no, we don't have brown water, hopefully never.
I don't think that I will ever get used to the slowness of everything here but I am dealing.

No brown water here, either but the water has been rationed since Bertha passed us. Every other day we hardly get water and the other day it's back to normal. Fine with me.

I'm getting used to the slowness. Example: we ordered (and paid) windows for our new house around three months ago. They said the windows would be delivered within 4 weeks. Today we finally got an employee from the manufacturer on the phone (we ordered in a hardware store so it took some time to get the phone number) and we got the promise that in two weeks the windows will be there. I didn't get a heart attack or so, I just took it.

Joe Black in PR Member

1POSTS

11 years ago

#24

Cosotnet...don't even try it, they give you 30 days cancelled them in two weeks.
Put 6 down 2 up paying $60 monthly and live near their antenna, horrible, if your going to read the news paper then ok but even watching you tube on my phone is horrible, the signal comes and goes and sometimes stays of for a while, then you call for service since it's a problem and even been new聽 they don't know when they can come they let you know in a week or too. Simply hate it, you have been warm.

1 member reacted to this post

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#25

H i Joe and welcome to Expat-blog!

Which ISP are you using right now?

KennyinPR Member

2POSTS

11 years ago

#26

I currently have Liberty as my ISP, but their reliability and service have been horrible in my neighborhood so I'm trying to find something better.聽 From past experiences, PRT/Claro customer support seemed almost non-existent so I'm reluctant in switching to them.聽

I was hoping to have Cosotnet come to my house to see if I could receive their service/signal, but someone mentioned that Cosotnet's service was horrible.聽 Anyone else have good or bad experience with Cosotnet or Osnet?聽 I'm also wondering if rain or clouds cause outages.聽 My wife and I work from home so reliable internet is extremely important to us.聽 Any good suggestions would be appreciated.聽 I live in a hilly area on the border of San Juan and Guaynabo.

frogrock Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#27

Hi guys,
After waiting for a month for CLARO to install a line, I was complaining to my neighbor.聽 So, she told me that her mother uses AT&T wireless home service聽 for telephone and internet.聽 I have been using my AT&T cell phone as a hotstpot for internet with great success, and paying for extra data as needed.聽 Anyway, I just ordered the AT&T wireless home phone service.聽 It includes a free WIFI router.聽 This will cost $120 per month. That includes both聽 my current cell phone service, the new home telephone line(which I will be using primarily for internet) and 60 Gigabytes of data per month.聽 The WIFI router can be picked up and moved anywhere you live,
My AT&T coverage聽 and internet speed has always been great, so that was a consideration.聽 After I have this service for a while, I will write a review.

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#28

Sounds like a good deal!
60 Gb bandwith per month is a decent amount, I'd be surprised if it wouldn't be sufficient.

Claro's service is deteriorating. I heard rumors that they want to sell the PR business and are not investing anymore...

1 member reacted to this post

tonie0750 Contributor

135POSTS

11 years ago

#29

Well we got Claro and the service at first was up and down. It seems to have been stabilized once the guy came out and changed the box to one with 5 GB( I guess that is what it is called, I am not too techny savy) anyway it seems to be up most of the time now.

Every time that my husband called,, they tried to sell us the Dish pkg. and we told them that we did not have our t.v. yet but now that we finally got our stuff after 3 months,, we called Direct T.V. since we were going to go with a prepaid plan but then when Ray called, they told him that we could go with regular service. so we did and they installed the other day and it has been Wonderful to finally have English programs instead of just Spanish t.v. through an antenna that he hooked up on the roof. So so far, so good. very happy. I feel like a regular person.

csmi Active member

46POSTS

11 years ago

#30

Gary wrote:
Now, things are different if you have a business and a business account at a credit union (here in PR that would be one of the cooperativas) . In that case you can get an unlimited bandwith contract for 49.95/month.
Since we own a computer service business we ran to the local cooperative, opened a business account and now we are enjoying super high speeds.
An external antenna and a special router completed the setup.

We've been using this for almost four months now and it works like charm.

For this $50/mo unlimited bandwidth, what speed do they give you?

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#31

csmi wrote:
For this $50/mo unlimited bandwidth, what speed do they give you?

Full 4G LTE speed. Of course it depends on your location.
Here in the office I get up to 30 Mbps download and up to 15 Mbps upload聽 (with an external antenna).

2 members reacted to this post

Sadrie64 Member

1POSTS

11 years ago

#32

The best one in your area and not just in your area in Puerto Rico is Lyberty Cable, either for Business or Home.聽 Anything else聽

Gary ViP

1845POSTS

11 years ago

#33

Anything else off topic? I don't think so.

There are many Internet Service Providers and anybody is free to give her/his opinion.

frogrock Serial expat

509POSTS

11 years ago

#34

AT&T sent the wrong piece of equipment, so my plan to set up an in-house wireless telephone for internet was a bust.聽 Still have not heard from CLARO. I ordered the service on September 24.聽 So, I am still using my AT&T cell phone as a hotspot and it works great.聽 I have used it successfully to watch streaming movies.聽 I will soon be moving to an area where Liberty Cable is the provider.聽 Until then, I will stick to my hot spot.

trekrider520 Serial expat

257POSTS

11 years ago

#35

We use Liberty and their customer service is awful, to put it mildly.聽 Unfortunately we're stuck with them since they are the only providers authorized in our development.聽 However, our internet reliability has gotten a lot better since I replaced the coax cable and splitter with my own.聽 I wonder if we got second-hand hardware when our cable/internet was set up.聽 Much less frustration now (knocking on wood right now!).