Friday, April 17, 2009

Mexico Roaming Update

Our trip for Spring Break this year was to Asia, so we're depending on the reports from Mexico that are trickling in from other beach-goers. The first notable change is that the 2 top GSM carriers, Movistar and TelCel have both lowered the number of minutes you get with their "Pay Per Call" plans, now at 15 minutes per call to the US, with each call costing about $1.50USD per 15 minute segment. That is still a good deal, but it's only half the number of minutes originally offered with these plans a couple years ago.

Sprint users were especially disappointed to find their roaming charges are now $1.69USD per minute, and their Text Messaging doesn't work in Mexico at all! It's ironic Sprint is one of the top roaming phones in the US, but not so south of the border. However, Nextel phones work quite well, but not for Voice or Text, but for the time being, free Internet access. Is it a glitch or a real promotion? Enjoy it while you can.

Alltel users are still getting their calls at no extra charge in Mexico (and Canada) with their North America Freedom plans. Still no word on what might happen with these plans. Considering renewing for another 2 years.

All changes are reflected on our Mexico Roaming Page. Of course, we'll need risk sunburn and head down there later this year to find out for ourselves, especially with a wi-fi phone. Now, if the carriers there would just let us "press 2 for English" like they do in Asia.

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