Costa Rica Opens NEX5G Program for Companies to Test 5G Solutions

SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA — A new 10-week program will let Costa Rican businesses build and validate 5G-enabled prototypes before deciding whether to scale them commercially.

Costa Rican companies have a new route for experimenting with 5G technology before committing to a full commercial deployment.

The Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, or MICITT, the National Learning Institute, known as INA, and the Promotora Costarricense de Innovación e Investigación have opened applications for NEX5G, a program designed to help productive units develop prototypes, proofs of concept and business solutions using Costa Rica's experimental 5G Testbed.

The initiative moves beyond introductory 5G training. Participating businesses will receive individualized technical and business support while developing and testing a proposed solution, gathering evidence on how it performs and preparing a preliminary path toward technical or commercial scaling.

The program comes as Costa Rica increasingly shifts its 5G policy conversation from network infrastructure alone toward practical applications in businesses, research and innovation.

Companies get 10 weeks to turn a 5G idea into a tested prototype

NEX5G is expected to run for approximately 10 weeks, with an estimated 90 hours of work for each participating productive unit.

During that period, teams will identify business opportunities, formulate hypotheses, design their proposed solution, create a prototype or proof of concept, test it on experimental 5G infrastructure and develop a roadmap for possible scaling.

That translates to an average commitment of roughly nine hours per week, based on the duration and workload published by MICITT.

The distinction between a prototype and a commercial product matters. A proof of concept can establish whether an idea is technically viable or whether 5G delivers a meaningful advantage for a particular application without requiring the company to make a much larger deployment decision first.

MICITT says the program is aimed at productive units with technological capabilities or potential in areas including software development, systems integration, Internet of Things, automation, data analytics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, telecommunications, embedded systems and digital platforms.

A 95% scholarship cuts the company contribution to ₡102,000

The stated value of the program is ₡2.04 million per participating unit.

INA will cover ₡1.938 million, or 95% of that cost, through its INA-SBD scholarship program. The participating business is responsible for the remaining ₡102,000.

That subsidy is one of NEX5G's most consequential features for smaller companies. Testing emerging technology can require specialized infrastructure and expertise that may be difficult for an individual small or medium-sized business to justify before it knows whether an application will work.

Instead of requiring participants to build their own experimental mobile network, NEX5G gives them access to an existing controlled test environment.

What Costa Rica's 5G Testbed actually does

The infrastructure behind NEX5G predates the new program.

Costa Rica formally launched its 5G Testbed in June 2025 as part of the “Conectividad 5G en Costa Rica” cooperation project. MICITT described it as a platform where organizations can test, validate and potentially scale technologies including 5G, Internet of Things, augmented reality and industrial automation. The laboratory is located at the Promotora's facilities in Vázquez de Coronado.

In July 2026, MICITT and the Promotora described the facility as an environment for testing products, services and business models in controlled conditions. Potential application areas include smart industry, advanced manufacturing, precision agriculture, logistics, digital health, education, smart cities, IoT, artificial intelligence and robotics.

NEX5G adds a more structured business-development process on top of that infrastructure.

Rather than merely giving an organization access to a laboratory, the program is designed to move participants through technical validation, evidence generation and preliminary planning for commercialization.

NEX5G is not the same as expanding public 5G coverage

The new program should not be confused with Costa Rica's separate rollout of commercial fifth-generation mobile networks.

NEX5G does not install cellular towers, award radio spectrum or expand coverage for ordinary mobile subscribers. Its role is experimental: companies use dedicated infrastructure to determine whether 5G-enabled technology can solve a particular technical or commercial problem.

That distinction is significant because some of the most valuable 5G applications are not simply faster smartphone connections.

Earlier Testbed programs have highlighted uses such as asset monitoring, industrial automation, remote equipment control, predictive maintenance, traceability and IoT deployments, along with advanced network functions including network slicing.

For companies, the practical question is therefore not merely whether 5G is available, but whether its characteristics create enough operational or commercial value to justify adopting it.

Who can apply to NEX5G

Selected productive units must assemble a team of at least two people.

One participant should bring a technical profile, while the other should be connected with leadership, innovation, business development or organizational decision-making. According to MICITT, that structure is intended to ensure that a proposed solution is considered both technically and commercially.

The requirement also signals that NEX5G is not being framed as a conventional classroom course for individual learners. It is an applied business intervention built around an actual proposed use case.

The official announcement says applications have been open since August 12. Subsequent institutional notices from INA, MICITT and the Promotora set August 31 as the deadline.

Interested businesses are being directed to the Innovar platform for program conditions and the application form.