Prices and Reliability

Pete, what you pay now could be around the same here on the island but don' expect to be able to run the A/C 24/7 for that kind of money. I pay around 100 bucks monthly for electricity and I don't even have A/C (I live in the mountains, cooler than down in the plains)
Water depends on where you are. I pay 15 dollars - my brother in law 75 and we use about the same amount. He lives in a new 'urbanizacion' and obviously they make the residents pay for the cost of the pipes.
Internet is reliable (I pay $50 or $55 for DSL-2Mb down/512Kb up. If you don't need the speed, the cheapest DSL is 25 bucks). Even in my neck of the woods there's DSL and it works all the time. A backup (like a contract for wireless internet with a cell phone provider) might be handy to deal with a hurricane aftermath. It can be weeks or months before phone/internet service and electricity is restored after a big storm. A generator would be a nice thing to have, too

Awesome, thank you so much Gary. I figured we'd just run a/c at night to sleep. I do think we'll be closer to the beach, wherever we end up. See ya'll in 8 months :-)

petedod wrote:

Awesome, thank you so much Gary.

You're welcome

petedod wrote:

I figured we'd just run a/c at night to sleep.

That's what many people do, a window unit in the bedroom and use it at night only - that's affordable. 

petedod wrote:

I do think we'll be closer to the beach, wherever we end up. See ya'll in 8 months :-)

Sounds good!

Hey Gary, is there one DSL provider for P.R. or are there several? Is there a cable Internet provider? I want to go ahead and see about what service, i.e. Upload and download speeds, are available in what areas of the island. She works for the Mayo Clinic and they want to be sure she has acceptable Internet speeds. Thanks in advance.
Pete

As far as I know there are two DSL providers.
The former state owned Puerto Rico Telephone company (now 100% owned by América Móvil) is the largest. http://www.clarotodo.com/Default.aspx?SecId=3
The other one is Puerto Rico Webmasters. http://www.prw.net/

Cable provider are:
Liberty PR: http://www.libertypr.com/
Comcast http://www.comcastinfo.com/residential/puerto-rico.html
Choice cable (south & west)http://www.choicecable.com/

Maybe there are more providers that I don't know of.

Not every cable provider offers service in all areas. Contact them about availability in your future area.
The same goes for PRW DSL.

PRT is available almost everywhere - even in my neck of the woods.

Thank you so much Gary, we appreciate it

You're welcome .

Petedod --

Depending on what type of internet connectivity you decided on, ie, if you will not be using a cable modem, there is also satellite as an alternative to cable for TV.  The prices are actually pretty competitive with cable, and cheaper than what you listed you pay in the states (base packages are about $65 all together), unless you opt for a lot of movie packages, etc.  The tradeoff vs. cable is lots more channels and HDTV vs. losing signal every time the weather gets bad (which is traditionally when you might want to watch!).  We have DirecTV and Dish Network at minimum, there may be more providers.

Also, to follow up on what Gary said about a "backup" internet connection:
1) I currently use a wireless USB plug-in to connect to the internet, it runs on the AT&T cell signal, and costs $40/month unlimited, and I am able to use it both in PR and when I travel regularly in the USVI and US, as long as regular AT&T signal is not "roaming".  This way I only have to pay one connection for wherever I might be so it is a huge convenience!

2) My wife uses her Blackberry to connect her laptop to the internet when our other connection goes down, so she has a "backup" connection without having to pay anything additional past her regular cell phone service.  My guess is you could likely also do this with the iPhones (never tried it), but if so you would clearly need to have it plugged in as it would be a monster drain on the charge, so that option if available would be functional but limit your mobility.

Oh yeah, sorry forgot the reliability part of the question...the AT&T wireless internet connection, while not the fastest connection, has been EXTREMELY reliable these past 2 years, as long as you have adequate cell phone signal.  I would highly recommend as a backup if you two require uninterrupted internet access.

And also, since you have a multi-computer situation at your house...while you could hook your computers together to share the wireless cell signal, for convenience, DirecTV sells a wireless router ($25?) which is pre-configured to use the AT&T wireless USB plug-in device, so you can very easily share the wireless connection with both of your computers.  My experience with this has been less than reliable however, and I think due to the limited bandwidth and router overhead, it seems to drop the connection regularly, so I would recommend against using that as a primary connection for more than 1 computer, but it functions fine for a multi-computer "backup connection" when your primary is down as long as you don't mind the limited speed.  I also use it for our PS3 connection to update SW when necessary to keep the blue-ray and games up-to-date.

Obviously, for now you will still get much greater bandwith from a physical line, but thought I could shed some light on a couple more wireless home config alternatives here.

One further note: my wife shares a DSL connection from an associate for her small office network from PRT/Claro.  The service (in San Juan!) is totally unreliable, and is down I would guess about 5-6% of the time, which seems like a small number but is totally unacceptable for a business internet connection that has to provide information via email / internet in real-time.  Also, the HW and SW for the provided DMAX unit promises up to 8 individual wireless connections, but when we get more than 4 or so devices on, it becomes completely unreliable, literally down more than it is up.  Better to get a hard connection and manage the network yourself I think if you are multi-computer, multi-printer, etc.. just my experience, not necessarily everyone's.