sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information International Cell Phone use

I don't know if this is the right spot but I'll try anyway. Does anybody have any suggetions on using a cell phone when traveling in South America?
Are you better off to work with a carrier here and take your phone or get on in the country you are travelling to?
Are there companies that sell short term usage contracts like this?

Thanks for your insight

I know that Verizon Wireless does offer this service, but it's not cheap. My wife looked into it last year when she took my son to Paris on his class trip. The cost was about $10.00 a day plus airtime and a fairly hefty deposit was required. You don't take your own phone; they rent you one with a completely separate number. It also takes about a week to line up, since they actually mail you the rental phone, so this isn't a last-minute idea for sure. I think after all was said and done, the package for one week was going to be nearly $100.00 before any usage. It wasn't worth it.

She ended up buying a calling card through the tour group office before she got there. It had decent rates to call back to the US, so the card that she bought for about $25.00 was just used to call us from the hotel or pay phones. The card was pretty cool since it had a toll-free number and PIN that we could use to call her and leave a voice mail. Not that it would notify her, but at least it let her know whenever she tried to dial a call with it.

Ed is correct again. There are a lot of places here in NYC that rent International Cell phones, depending on the country you're going to. Even so, and with all these choices, it can still be a pain in the butt. And expensive.

BTW - in some of the countries, your current cell phone will work fine and you'll just roam. Check on your providers website, I know Verizon has a whole page just for this.

When we were in Italy last year we used a phone card. Excellent. Easy. Cheap.


Sam

Thanks for the input. I will check it out.

The calling card with voice mail sounds interesting. Any idea who that was through?

Magic jack? wouldn't this be a good time to try it out? I will be sending mine with my dad in a month or two, down to costa rica.