Right now, I'm in a restaurant on the beach. Internet is pretty good here (and everywhere else I've been -- way better than the average coffee shop / hotel / etc internet in the US). I use StrongVPN and haven't had any problems yet. I Skype and watch Netflix all the time with no issues at all.

Here's a speed test (while off my VPN and at a restaurant rather than my house): http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3099024113

Doesn't sound like a very accurate description of Costa Rica's Internet:

http://www.ticotimes.net/Business/Internet-slow-but-speeding...

Costa Rica has among the slowest Internet speeds and least broadband access in South America.

It's slow as in you're not going to find a 20 megabit connection all to yourself. Normal speed is probably closer to 1 megabit, but you can easily get a bit better than that these days (I'm on 5).

Do you have Time Warner? I'm pretty sure South America is getting a faster connection than I have.

Better than what I'm getting.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3100376268

That's 16mbit/1mbit ADSL:

When I lived there I relied mainly on 3G. You can get a prepaid SIM for ~$6, and you pay around $0.50 per day for unlimited data. It is fairly slow at 1 Mbps up/down, but its enough to make Skype calls and the like.