BajaNomad

Baja Phone

Boshvideo - 6-26-2007 at 06:36 PM

What is the best way for telephone communication in the Baja. Cell from the states or phone card from Mexico? This is for a two week trip.
many thanks.

sorry if this is in the wrong section. It should be with the questions .

[Edited on 6-27-2007 by Boshvideo]

Pescador - 6-26-2007 at 07:36 PM

The least expensive way is with a phone card, but that comes with a certain amount of frustration. Sometimes it is difficult to find a public pay phone that is not in an area with noisy trucks and a lot of extra noise. If you are staying in hotels, at least you will usually find a phone that is a little more removed from the noisy hustle and bustle of everyday life. We use a Continental card from Baja to the US and it works great. Check out this website
http://www.telephone-card.pushline.com

joel - 6-26-2007 at 08:01 PM

I have a Telcel pay-as-you-go phone that I'm very happy with. Rates to the states used to be fairly high, but they have a new plan you can ask for that is 11 pesos for the first 20 minutes and 11 pesos for each 20 minutes after that. It's 5 pesos per 20 minutes locally.

Obviously there's no coverage outside of towns, but it has coverage in most towns bigger than a few hundred people, in my experience.

woody with a view - 6-26-2007 at 08:03 PM

keep in mind, for the most part, there is NO COVERAGE between towns out in the desert.

Diver - 6-26-2007 at 08:55 PM

If you must stay in contact and will be outside the city areas, sat phone is the only way. Google sat phone rentals and you will find a few options.
Otherwise, use a phone card when you get near a phone unless you have a US cell service that offers a Baja plan.
Telcel cel phones work fine where they work but are not cheap to the US.

.

DavidT - 6-26-2007 at 09:05 PM

My Cingular phone automatically switches to the Telcel network. Calls are $0.79 a minute. Convenient, but pricey.

Iflyfish - 6-26-2007 at 10:58 PM

Lots of people are using Skype on their laptops. Six cents to hook up and two and a half cents per minute last time I checked. Good anywhere you can get wifi. Can call land and mobile phones with it.

We purchased MovieStar in Baja last winter and it worked well. However next time it will be Skype.

Iflyfish

amir - 6-27-2007 at 12:40 AM

I use Skype and it can be a frustrating experience. The voice quality is terrible most of the day. Only at certain times in the evening it works okay. But when it works, Skype is the cheapest. We have the yearly plan, $40/year unlimited calling to the US and Canada.

We are getting a Vonage phone with a USA number that we can use down here. I hope it works with our satellite internet connection. The price of living in an isolated place: Satellite dish installation, satellite service monthly expense, phone monthly expense. We know people that travel with their Vonage box; if there is internet, you can use Vonage.

Moviestar Cellular Phone has a special rate to the States. $1 for 30 minutes. Telcel may have a similar plan, I hear, but until recently it was very expensive to use a cell phone to call the States. You can buy a cell phone for 20 bucks and it comes with 20 bucks worth of calls, so in effect, the phone is free. You can buy TelCel phone cards in most any tiendita anywhere.

There are several companies that offer VOIP services, and the rates vary from 2 cents a minute and up. The prepaid cards mentioned in the beginning of this thread is really the best solution for temporary communication needs.

--Amir

bonanza bucko - 6-27-2007 at 07:01 AM

If your're gonna be in the city you can use the pay as you go card described above. If your'e gonna be in the boonies...and that's most of Baja..the only way to communicate is the Sat Phone. You can rent them by the day, week or month...Google for that...or you can buy one. That costs a bundle but it's worth it if your're gonna be down there in the boonies a lot. Usage costs about $1.25 per minute. But that's cheap if you need to get a message out or if you're in trouble with a truck/car somewhere remote...again, that's most of Baja. We have had a sat phone for about five years and wouldn't live down there without it. All we do is try not to call grandma to chat.

bajabound2005 - 6-27-2007 at 07:52 AM

Who is your cell phone provider in the US? Verizon has the "North American Calling Plan" which includes Mexico and Canada in the plan minutes. If you have Verizon you can switch to that plan, and then switch back when you return to the US. If you do that, make sure they also add International Dialing. And make sure there is coverage where you are going.

woody with a view - 6-27-2007 at 08:12 AM

on the cingular theme. i've found that while on the telcel network in baja i need to hold down "zero" key until the display shows a "plus" sign. then i can dial out normally without using country codes-just area code and the number. FYI

BajaRob - 6-27-2007 at 11:00 AM

We use Cingular ( AT&T ) on their North American plan. No roaming or long distance charges in Mexico, US, and Canada. Unfortunately, they do not offer it to new customers. When we travel in Mexico, it connects to Telcell or Moviestar dependind on which has the stronger signal.

BajaGeoff - 6-27-2007 at 04:57 PM

This is who I am going to rent a sat phone from for my trip next month:

http://www.telestial.com/satellite_phones.php

It is $9.00 per day with a 6 day minimum + charges for calls.

It is pretty reasonable for the added peace of mind...especially when you are in the boonies.

woody with a view - 6-27-2007 at 05:03 PM

Geoff

where do you pick up the phone? is it thru the mail or do they have a local distributer. a real good price for the piece of mind.

Telcel plan?

jeffg - 6-27-2007 at 05:32 PM

Joel,

How do you get that plan? It sounds like a great deal, I'm using a telcel cell phone with the Amigo cards, I think I'm paying around 8 pesos per minute to the US. Pretty expensive, so anything I could do to improve it would be great.

Jeff
Quote:
Originally posted by joel
I have a Telcel pay-as-you-go phone that I'm very happy with. Rates to the states used to be fairly high, but they have a new plan you can ask for that is 11 pesos for the first 20 minutes and 11 pesos for each 20 minutes after that. It's 5 pesos per 20 minutes locally.

Obviously there's no coverage outside of towns, but it has coverage in most towns bigger than a few hundred people, in my experience.

joel - 6-27-2007 at 06:46 PM

Jeff,

I hadn't been down since the fall. When I called to reactivate my phone, I asked about the rates and the customer service guy told me they had a new international plan I could sign up for. Hmmm. $1 a minute or a $1 for 20 minutes. It was a hard choice.

Joel

Mango - 6-27-2007 at 07:04 PM

If you are not going to be in Mexico for long; I just recommend getting "Ladatel" phone card from TelMex. They are easy to buy; and easy to use.

A picture off the internet of the card

A picture of a Ladatel phone

First you will need to find a phone card. Many shops, usually drug stores and corner markets, will have a little sign in the window with the blue phone/Telmex logo stating they sell Ladatel cards. You can buy them with 50,100, and 200 pesos of credit.

Take your new card to a phone, pick up handset, enter card, dial 001 + (US area code) + (Phone Number) or 001 - XXX- XXX- XXXX

As stated before; it can be hard to find a Ladatel phone in a quiet spot, so keep a lookout for the best phones to make a call from when you are about town. I recommend looking in the city parks or hotel lobbies for quiet phone locations. You can also use a button on the phone to increase volume while you are on the phone.

Unfortunately, there are not as many Ladatel phones as there used to be since many Mexicans now use cell phones instead. But, you can still find them pretty easily. So if all you need a phone for is to call back to the USA every so often to let people know you are OK, the Ladatel cards are the way to go.

I have a cell phone I can use in Mexcio; but, often use the Ladatel phones. I like that it displays how much time you have left with your current credits for each call. Handy, when talking to someone long distance... ,"I only have 2min 30 sec left on the card.. got to go.. bye."

You might look into "unlocking" your cell phone and buying a local SIM chip when you get to Mexico. Just swap that in, call to activate it (It is in Spanish, so it better be good at speaking it otherwise you will get confused and just wind up with an unactivated chip and a cell phone with all the menus in spanish.)

Mike99km - 6-27-2007 at 07:24 PM

I use th Verizion North American plan It only works though Ensenada. I go to middle of Baja in the winter and Baja Sur in the summer and it stops there. Last year I was with a friend using AT&T and he had service in most of the towns. He was not on there N.A. program.
If your a member of Discover Baja they will rent SAT phones to you. I don't know the cost, but you pick them up at there office in San Diego.

bajabound2005 - 6-27-2007 at 07:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Mike99km
I use th Verizion North American plan It only works though Ensenada.


When did you last update your PRL?

BajaWarrior - 6-27-2007 at 08:36 PM

Yep, Verizon has been a bust for years now in Baja.

The Cingular (AT&T),which roams on TelCel, works very well from Mexicali to South Campos below San Felipe but not too much beyond.

Any word from guys south of us in South Campos regarding how far you have service?

Also, I have only been as far south as San Quintin in the past two years with this phone, any word from Pacific Side peoples regarding service roaming with Cingular or AT&T further than San Quintin?

I have the North America Plan and like it a lot. Even used it in Canada this past month, worked great.

[Edited on 6-28-2007 by BajaWarrior]

BajaGeoff - 6-27-2007 at 09:17 PM

Woody,

They are actually based in San Diego and will deliver the phone to you. When you return home, you put the phone in the mail in a box they provide and ship it back to them. I am sure you could drop it off too if you wanted. Pretty nice service!

Bedman - 6-28-2007 at 01:48 AM

WEll.... I'm not the sharpest telecommunicater by a long shot but, here goes.

Long story short, my wife was in Russia for the last 3 weeks. I wanted her to be able to make phone calls on a cell while there. I talked with several Guru types about the subject and they all recommended a GSM UN-locked phone. In essence, this phone can access any and all of the major carriers in Europe and many other countries, if not all. Buy the phone here in the states and then when you arrive at your destination you buy a "Sim Card" and then buy minutes to be applied to that Sim card. As you leave one country ie Russia and travel on to Switzerland you buy another Sim Card from a dealer in that country. Each new carrier/country/card will have a new phone number and you then buy minutes to be applied to that new carrier/country/card. Supposedly, the phone number will remain yours as long as you keep minutes/time on the phone with that carrier/country/card (for up to six months after you buy the minutes, If you use up all the minutes and don't buy more then the number goes ..?? away?? back into the log of numbers?? I don't know, but you lose the number) Her phone worked well in 4 different countries and was WAYY cheaper than the pay phones. England to the U.S. on a pay phone was about $6 US a minute. On her cell it was .88 cents a minute.

To continue, I've been told by those same Guru's that Mexican Sim Cards are readily available in Mexico and her phone will work on any of the companies that sell the Sim cards. The recommended servicxe for Mexico was TelCell. We havent tried it yet.

Bedman

[Edited on 6-28-2007 by Bedman]

bajacrawler - 6-28-2007 at 09:16 AM

Can you just go to the Telcel store and have them change your existing Telcel phone from the old service to new service (11 pesos for 20 minutes).

joel - 6-28-2007 at 11:52 AM

I don't know if you can go to a store -- I did it by calling their customer service number from my phone. There's an English-language one. I don't have the number handy but you can probably find it on their site.

Bedman - 6-28-2007 at 03:20 PM

Crawler,

I don't think you can convert just any phone to a different carrier. Example: I have a cell phone with Sprint cell service. It is "Locked" to that server and cannot be used with any other server. Hence the "UN-Locked" phone, is necessary to be able to use a server/provider of your choice with the Sim card

Bedman.

Wingnut - 6-28-2007 at 05:14 PM

I have Cingular (AT&T) with the North American plan. It hooks up with TelCel throughout Mexico and with the plan I can dial anywhere without using long distance. It works fine in all of the towns and cities in Mexico where Telcel service is available. My sister borrowed it just two weeks ago when she went to Cabo and had no problems at all. I have had times when the TelCel network went down but that seemed to be few and far between. I recommend it highly. In fact I hardly ever use all my minutes in a given month and they keep rolling them over...

bajacrawler - 6-28-2007 at 06:23 PM

I have a Mexican Telcel phone that you put minutes in via prepaid cards. Usually there is at least one person at the Telcel stores that speaks english. I just thought it might be easier to talk to someone face to face about the 20 minutes for 11 pesos new service.

Jack