At 06 Apr 2007 15:30:40 -0500 Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> I have a negative opinion about local SIMs in Mexico. Last I checked,
> Telcel was charging about 3 pesos/minute for domestic calls, and
> 10 pesos/minute for calls to the US. Also, while incoming calls are
free
> on Mexican cell phones now, they usually cost a US caller 25 or
> 30 cents/minute. At these prices, if most of your calls are to or from
> the US, if you can get the 59 cent/minute roaming rate from Cingular you
> may end up better off overall just using the Cingular phone and saving
the
> cost and hassle of getting the local SIM.


Agreed. However, to call back to the states, Movistar has a special
prepaid plan that allows calls up to 30 minutes to the US for 11 pesos
(about a $1.) You have to ask for that plan (called "por llamada") when
you activate else you pay the regular per minute rate for calls to the US
(9 pesos/min, IIRC.) I was ready to buy a Movistar prepaid phone (about
$40US with $30US airtime included) just for calls back to the states, but
good sense prevailed- I remembered I was on vacation and decided phone
calls were part of what I was vacationing from! ;-)

> Of course, to pay 59 cents/minute, you need Cingular World Traveler
> or Cingular Mexico added to your account, at $6 and $5 monthly,
> respectively. If you can just add one of these plans for the
> month and then cancel it, the price will be paid for with less
> than 15 minutes of use.
>
> The data access may change the cost evaluation, however. I think
> Cingular charges almost 2 cents/kB in Mexico, which is quite outrageous.
> I don't know what you pay with a prepaid Mexican SIM.

I tried figuring that out from the Movistar website, but my Spanish is
too weak. If my bad memory (and worse Spanish) recalls, they have a WAP
"walled garden" on prepaid (simlar to T-Mo prepaid in the US) preventing
you from accessing websites outside their WAP deck, so I doubt that would
be much of an option for the OP.