Claro Costa Rica’s LTE-A network is now live, it has been confirmed. Branded ‘4.5G Ultra Veloz’, the service went live at the end of June, and is now understood to be available in around 20 major towns and cities, including the likes of San Jose, Limon and Tamarindo. Claro notes that the network supports download speeds of up to 300Mbps, but is only accessible to users with selected handsets, including the Samsung S8, S8+, S9 and S9+, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and the Sony Xperia XZ2, all of which support 4×4 MIMO functionality.
Claro paid USD19 million for 2×5MHz blocks of spectrum in the 2100MHz band and 2×10MHz in the 1800MHz range in March this year, after originally bidding on the spectrum in July 2017.