Costa Rica’s Telecommunications Superintendency (SUTEL) on Thursday disclosed the results of a study that found customer satisfaction rates with mobile services in the country is 74 percent on average.
Consulting firm DemoscopÃa conducted the study from August to October last year, evaluating users’ perception of services offered by the five phone carriers for landlines, IP phones, mobile phones and mobile Internet.
The results for mobile carriers do not show any significant differences between them, but privately run telecom services scored better than the state-owned Kölbi.
Tuyo obtained the highest score at 74.9 percent, followed by Fullmóvil at 74.8 percent, Movistar at 73.6 percent, Claro at 73.6 percent  and Kölbi at 73.4 percent.
Kölbi scored better on quality of mobile Internet coverage. Customers were asked how many coverage failures they experienced weekly, and almost half of Claro users – 47.5 percent – reported service failures at least once a week.
Users of Tuyo, Fullmóvil and Movistar reported similar experiences, ranging from 34-36 percent. Kölbi customers had the lowest percentage of problems at 26.4 percent.
Despite these results customers gave Claro the highest overall ratings for quality and satisfaction in mobile Internet services, at 69 percent.
Fullmóvil came in second at 68 percent, followed by Tuyo and Movistar at 65 percent, and Kolbi at 58 percent.
DemoscopÃa also evaluated customers’ satisfaction with all other telecommunications services, and mobile services placed last. Landline services received the highest praise, with satisfaction rates of 78.5 percent. IP phone services came in second at 74.2 percent, and mobile services were third at 74.1 percent.
SUTEL will use the study’s results to help draft new service quality and consumer protection regulations, the agency reported on its website.
The new regulations will be submitted for a public consultation process in coming weeks, SUTEL reported.
