The virtual assistant and knowledge navigator mobile app Siri has been a staple of the Apple iPhone family since the 4S model; in fact, the S stands for “Siri.” In Costa Rica, the announcement of Siri was met with great joy among fans of Apple products, although in the beginning “she” (the default, female digital voice) did not communicate in Spanish. Once Siri got past the “no habla” barrier, she became a favorite app among iPhone users in Costa Rica.

As noted by several Siri users and reported by Alonso Castro of technology blog iPhoneti.co, Siri stopped working on the ICE Kolbi network at some point during the second week of January. Not all iPhone users were affected; those who own the 5C, 5S, the new iPhone 6, and the extra-large iPhone 6 Plus noticed that Siri was simply inoperative. The Spanish equivalent message of “I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t take any requests right now” became annoying, but this did not affect iPhone 4S or 5 users.

A Wireless Network Carrier Issue

The fact that the problem was isolated to the Kolbi network and not Claro or Movistar suggested that something was not right on the wireless carrier end. Users who had upgraded to iOS8 complained to customer service that the suggested fixes of adjusting the network settings or booting up the iPhone were not working. Other customers complained that the nonsensical explanation from Kolbi customer service about this problem not being present in iPhones sold by ICE was infuriating.

The lack of Siri continued for nearly 10 days, which prompted some iPhone users to switch from Kolbi to Claro or Movistar under the new mobile number portability scheme. The problem was pinpointed to the ongoing effort by ICE to switch several users to the new 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, which many Kolbi customers believe it has been more problematic than beneficial.