Country profile: Costa Rica

There are three MNOs in the Costa Rican market, market leaders Kölbi (the brand of the state-backed Grupo ICE), América Móvil’s Claro, and Liberty Costa Rica (formerly Movistar). Operators have continued to invest in 4G network expansion and deploying fibre.

In late 2022, Grupo ICE was offered a US$300mn line of credit by EXIM Bank, the official export credit agency of the US federal government, to bankroll the telco’s planned 5G network. However, the government has been battling to return unused spectrum from Grupo ICE, without compensation, who they claim has been underusing their concession, stalling market’s competitiveness and development.

The regulator, Sutel says that the country’s economy stands to lose up to US$1.134bn by 2024 if the frequencies are not made available for 5G use. 5G consultations began in Costa Rica in late 2020 and a spectrum auction was expected in 2021, to date no formal dates have been released.

Costa Rica is a small but exciting market for towercos, who consider it a friendly environment in terms of its infrastructure sharing policies, as well as its sustainable, eco-friendly approach.

Towercos operating in the country include SBA Communications, American Tower, Telesites, Phoenix Tower International, and Continental Towers. América Móvil has now completed the formation of its tower carve-out Sites, which operates nearly 30 thousand sites across 15 markets in Latin America and is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange. In Costa Rica, the operator’s 580 sites were transferred to the towerco’s hands, and Sites has been steadily building new towers since. Separately, América Móvil’s Mexican towerco, Telesites has been building sites for the operator in Costa Rica, whether these sites will be consolidated into Sitios Latinoamérica remains to be seen. In May 2023, the Costa Rican regulator Sutel formally initiated the country’s 5G auction process. No date has been confirmed for the 5G spectrum auction, but Huawei have been banned from supplying equipment