Cell phone in Colombia question

[Pete E]

When we go to Colombia my wife can get her cell phone reprogramed with a Colombian number.It costs about $25 to reset the phone.Not all phones can be reprogramed.For some reason they could not do it with mie but could with my wifes.They were both dual mode phones.
With the colombian phone number my wife can be called no charge to her.She has to buy a phone card for outgoing calls.She didn't think she could call to the US with it.
I know there are other cell phone options that have been talked about before but couldn't find them in the archives.Does anybody know a cheap option to use the cell phone to call back to the US?Calls to the US and even local phone service within Coombia seems very expensive.Is there anything like an unlimited call plan like you can buy here?
A friend of ours would like to get her mother in Cali a cell phone she could call here with.

Pete

[Cali James]

... in response to Cell phone in Colombia question, posted by Pete E on Jun 24, 2003

[This message has been edited by Cali James]

Howdy Pete,

Cell phones are great in Cali when dialing to the cell phone from the States but aren't a very good option going the other way.  You pay for the connect time plus an international charge also.

You can pay for a cell phone plan with Bellsouth in Colombia. They have a variety of plans but you can get 600 connect time minutes for about $45 with each aditional minute an extra 30 cents or so.  With a plan I'd be concerned about the Colombian person going beyond the 600 minutes if you know what I mean.

This is what I'd recommend.  Your friend can buy her mother a USED Nokia in Cali and get a new number activated for easily under $100.  I wouldn't buy a plan but would purchase Bellsouth prepaid cards and with these you can load the phone up with minutes.  If the mother wants to call her daughter she's really better off doing this from the home phone.  It makes little sense to me why a person would need to call the States from a cell unless they were traveling or something.  

If she absolutely needs to call the States on the cell, she can provided she has enough pesos/minutes loaded into the phone from the cards.  You'll pay for both connect and international time and this may end up being 2000 pesos or so per minute.  Since it will always be cheaper going the other way, the mother could call her daughter for only a few seconds and ask her to call her back at the cell.  The daughter would pay the international rate from the U.S. and the mother would only pay a one minute charge.  This might be a workable solution...

Another more extreme solution is what I used when I worked in Colombia and needed to contact my office in the States.  I established a callback plan using www.telcan.net.  I would dial a number in the U.S. given to me by Telcan.  I would let it ring once, I'd hang up and the Telcan service would call me back.  When I'd answer the cell phone, I had essentially a dial tone but it's was originating from my service in the U.S. and not from Colombia.  It's not too complicated once you set the system up and it saved me a lot of money as the rates work out to about 22 cents a minute calling the U.S. from Colombia.

[cancunhound]

... in response to Cell phone in Colombia question, posted by Pete E on Jun 24, 2003

I haven't seen that option yet (unlimited to US).  What has worked very well for us is that I left an old refurbished laptop and webcam down in Cali for her family.  They are able to communicate pretty decent visually using the new messenger services even without broadband connections.  They don't even pay for a dialup fee down there (seems like shared logins are a dime a dozen).  It's saved me a ton of money and they really love it.

[Michael B]

... in response to Re: Cell phone in Colombia question, posted by cancunhound on Jun 24, 2003

Martha's computer broke a while back, she has a web cam that I gave her, and before her computer broke she sent me several still photos as email attachments. Now she just sends me an email when she can, like if she's in the mall and stops at an internet cafe (of course we phone 2, 3, 4 times a week, but even using prepaid cards, that gets expensive). Anyway, she's got a friend who is going to lend her a computer and she wants to do real time caming with me. She says she buys cards (similar to our phone cards) for internet access...tell me about the free dial-ups, and I'll tell her, I don't think she is aware of it. There used to be a lot of free ones up her, supported by banner and pop-up advertising, but I'm only aware of one still in business (NetZero) and they now limit you to 10 hours a month.

[cancunhound]

... in response to Re: Re: Cell phone in Colombia question, posted by Michael B on Jun 24, 2003

Most small businesses down there are on the internet, mostly through standard dialup accounts.  Odds are everyone knows somebody that works for one of these - whether it's a gas station, cloth store, etc.. - and they just share the username and password.  Of course you don't share it with everybody - you would run into multiple access problems if you did that.  When down in Cali I've never had to pay for internet using this method.  As far as the true "free" isp's, we still have quite a few options: NetZero, Juno, Address.com, Netolis, DotNow, etc.. - but none would have access numbers in Colombia - I think tutopia.com was the last freebie down there.   Even for the U.S., none of the free services are worth the hastle IMHO - I personally use kamudi.net and pay only $4.90/mth PayPal w/no contract - can't beat that.  I checked in on my wife while she was using that yahoo messenger thing last night with a girlfriend in Cali - amazing how well that cam works with a dialup - and it's still beneficial if only one person has a cam (of course only one is seeing the other but it makes a big difference).