Using Satellite in Central America

[Catalyst]

Hello all, excellent website, I'm glad I found you.

I'm an Internet consultant working out of Washington D.C. One of my clients is a businessman w/ a beach house in Costa Rica. This person would like to have high-speed Internet piped into this location. We have searched and have found no providers in the town where his house is located.

Question: Can we order a satellite TV package from someone (Dish, Receiver, Account, etc) and then take it down there with us and install it at his beach house?

We have contacted a couple of satellite providers and all have said they do not service customers in Costa Rica, however, as long as our account is active, and we can get a signal, couldn't we just take our equipment there and setup?

Please pardon my overall ignorance of how satellite TV works. We just want to know if there's any way we could pull this off.

thanks, Brad

 

[charper1]

Weird they say that, DirecTV Latin America http://www.directvla.com/

Try Sky Mexico too http://www.sky.com.mx/

 

[Catalyst]

Yeh I thought so too. I figured satellite would be available pretty much anywhere, since it's not constrained by wires and such.

If we continue to run into brick walls, can anyone tell me if it's technically possible to have Satellite installed here in Washington D.C., then take it down, pack it up, and take all the equipment to Costa Rica and set it up there?

 

[charper1]

Depending on the service you never know how far the signal beam (footprint) overlaps outside our boarders. Beams don't just cover everything. The farther outside of the USA, the larger and larger a dish must be if that signal is CONUS directed. At some point/distance it just is not cost effective to continue to throw money at hardware to attempt to get a watchable CONUS signal. Thus the other non-USA services and some of your contacts saying they don't serivce OUTSIDE of the USA.

 

[cheebs]

If you want satellite internet services in CR, you need to contact RACSA there. They are the sole provider for Costa Rica.

For satellite TV, there are reports that you can get SOME D* signal down there, but definitely not all channels.

This is as charper1 said, due to the fact that none of the US services are intended for sale outside of the USA, and any possible reception is due only to "spillover."

Only legal TV option is DirecTV Latin America (GLA) which offers absolutely dismal service and programming.