Although research was carried out into 3G connectivity and the obtaining of 3G hardware once in Nicaragua in reality it was not possible.
A considerable amount of time was spent at three separate carrier stores both in Masaya itself and in Managua. Both Claro and Movistar proved incapable or obstructive in providing the items we required.
I was fortunate to have two fluent Spanish speakers who assisted me in conveying my requirements to the store representatives so there was a guarantee that translation was not an issue.
In Masaya it looked as though little or no one used 3G and this seemed to be confirmed in the lack of any 3G signal The Regis hotel owner informed us that both Claro and Movistar apparently sell the phones with the SIMs glued in the device? Which would probably explain the lack of SIM stock?
To be fair Movistar did eventually provide a 3G USB dongle and after some dialog with them and with Trevor it may well have been possible to get this to work. However it turned out that there was no 3G signal available anyway making any such venture redundant.
I as well as others I asked in the group never received a 3G connection, only a signal strength to allow voice and text services only both in Masaya and on the volcano.
It was not a viable option to continually ask volunteers who had paid to attend a volcano field trip to be distracted by going to various stores in a vain attempt to get something which turned out to be so difficult to obtain. Also transport was planned each day to take the group as a whole to the various points on the volcano for study and measurement taking so for my part I did not want to obstruct this process.
I realise that there was dialog at least with Claro prior to my going to Nicaragua that stated the hardware we wanted out there was obtainable. However this was not the case once over there!