Costa Rica

Kölbi wins the Video Experience award with a score of 65 points — up by 2.4 points since the last report. However, Kölbi’s lead has nearly halved since our previous report. This change was driven by a rise of seven points (13%) in Movistar’s score, while Claro’s increased by 3.1 points (5.6%). These changes have meant that all operators have moved up a category — from Fair (40-55) to Good (55-65) in Movistar and Claro’s case, and from Good to Very Good (65-75) for Kölbi.

Breaking down the Video Experience by network technology type — 3G and 4G. Our Kölbi users continued to see the best 4G Video Experience with a score of 74.5 points — half a point shy of an Excellent rating. Meanwhile, Movistar users enjoyed an improved experience — from Good to Very Good — compared to our last report. Claro’s 4G Video Experience was statistically unchanged and continued to place in the Good category. That said, the 3G Experience in Costa Rica ranged from Poor to Fair.

Opensignal’s Video Experience quantifies video streaming quality by measuring real-world video streams using dedicated video streaming tests to reflect users’ true experience over an operator’s mobile network. The calculation takes picture quality, video loading time and stall rate into account and combines these measurements using an ITU-based approach to reflect the perceived video experience as reported by real people. A Very Good rating indicates that users generally enjoyed fast loading times and only occasional stalling, but the experience might have been somewhat inconsistent across users and/or video providers/resolutions.

As we descend to lower ratings, loading times lengthen, and users encounter more stops and stutters in video streams, most notably at higher resolutions. A Poor Video Experience indicates prolonged loading times, and frequent stalling is common.

Ever since we added the Games Experience award to our Costa Rica mobile network experience report in June 2020, Claro’s winning streak remains unbroken — three times in a row. The operator’s score of 57.9 points (on a 100-point scale) means our Claro users saw the best experience while playing multiplayer mobile games in Costa Rica. Scores reported by our Kölbi (39.8) and Movistar (36.2) users were significantly lower than those of users connecting on Claro’s networks. Lower scores mean users’ experience becomes less enjoyable, marred with increased delays and lack of control in gameplay.

Opensignal’s Games Experience quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located worldwide. The approach is built on several years of research, quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.

Claro holds onto our Voice App Experience award with a score of 79.3 points. Our users on Claro’s network saw a 0.9 point improvement since the last report, which places them in the Acceptable category. Meanwhile, Kölbi users reported a greater improvement of 2.5 points — from 71.8 to 74.3 points — which was good enough to upgrade their Voice App Experience rating from Poor to Acceptable. As a result, Claro’s lead over Kölbi stands at five points. Movistar continued to place in the Poor category with a score of 71.5 points.

An Acceptable rating means some users were satisfied with the quality of the call and were generally able to comprehend without repetition, while some may have suffered from perceptible call quality impairments such as clicking sounds or distortion. Likewise, a Poor rating means many users were dissatisfied and likely suffered from increased call quality impairments.

Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.

Kölbi has retained the top spot on Download Speed Experience as our users observed overall download speeds of 21.2 Mbps. However, its lead over Claro has shrunk this time — down from 10.3 Mbps (87.7%) seen in our previous report to 6.1 Mbps (39.9%) this time. This is because average download speeds observed by our Claro users rose by 3.4 Mbps to 15.2 Mbps, compared to the modest drops of 0.8 Mbps and 0.3 Mbps seen by our Kölbi and Movistar users, respectively.

When we break down Download Speed Experience by mobile technology generation. In 4G download speed measurements, our Kölbi users saw the fastest average speeds — 30.8 Mbps — down by 2.1 Mbps (6.5%) since our last report. On the other hand, Claro users’ 4G Download speeds rose by 3.4 Mbps (21.2%) to 19.1 Mbps. As a result, Claro has reduced the gap with Kölbi to 11.7 Mbps (61.2%) from the 17.2 Mbps (109%) gap between each operator’s users’ experience in the last report.

Claro and Kölbi were joint winners of the Upload Speed Experience award in our last report, but this time around, Claro wins it outright. This is due to a 0.8 Mbps (11.8%) increase in the average upload speeds observed by our Claro users and a 0.2 Mbps (3.4%) decline in Kölbi’s score. Claro now leads by 1.1 Mbps with a score of 7.1 Mbps, with Kölbi in second place with 6 Mbps, followed by Movistar with 4.7 Mbps.

Upload speeds are becoming increasingly important in mobile services, with changing usage patterns and consumption habits. Mobile users now engage more on social media apps — creating and sharing high-resolution images and videos — and are moving away from content consumption to content creation, which gives operators with the fastest upload speeds a distinct advantage.

Once again, Movistar won our Latency Experience award — this time with an average overall response time of 49.9 milliseconds (ms). This is a slight improvement from the 51.5 ms latency score our users recorded on Movistar’s network in our last report. Kölbi is second-placed with a latency score of 62.4 ms and Claro is third with a latency score of 71.3ms. Both Claro and Kölbisaw their Latency Experience worsen by 4.3 ms and 7.7 ms, respectively. Latency impacts the customer experience in subtle ways; lower latency scores mean less lag when using real-time applications.

While our Costa Rican users on all three operator’s networks have spent a greater proportion of their time connected to 4G services since our last report, Claro and Movistar’s scores have surpassed the 80% mark. Claro won our 4G Availability award with a score of 83.5 points — a noteworthy improvement of 5.4 percentage points since our last report. Movistar’s score increased by 4.3 percentage points to 80.9%, while Kölbi’s score rose by 2.8 percentage points to 69.6%. As a result, Claro has now established its lead over Movistar at 2.6 percentage points.

Opensignal's 4G Availability shows the proportion of time 4G users spent connected to their 4G network. And the 4G Availability of Costa Rica means that, on average, our 4G users on Claro and Movistar were able to latch on to a 4G connection more than eight out of 10 times, while those on Kölbi could connect almost seven out of 10 times.

Little has changed since our last report in terms of 4G Coverage Experience with Kölbi occupying first place. The operator’s score increased slightly by 0.2 points to 7.6 points (on a scale of 10). Meanwhile, Movistar and Claro’s scores increased by 0.5 points to 7.4 and 6 points, respectively. Due to these improvements, Kölbi’s lead over second-placed Movistar has more than halved since our last report — from 0.5 points to 0.2 points.

Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience metric measures how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.