Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

talosian

Aug 4, 2004, 9:55 PM

Post #1 of 20 (2568 views)

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In case anhone is interested

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When I was at the airport recently, just for fun I checked the price of a call from GDL airport to Los Angeles. Cost is US$12 for every 3 minutes and if you do 3 minutes and 1 second, it's billed at 6 minutes (US$24). And you think the price of hamburgers at the airport is bad.

Spock.
"When all logical explanations have failed, we must look to the illogical for the answer.

johanson / Moderator

Aug 4, 2004, 11:48 PM

Post #2 of 20 (2551 views)

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Re: [talosian] In case anhone is interested

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I'm missing something here. I thought TelMex charged by the minute. Yet you are mentioning very very expensive calls and quoting 3 minute calls. Who, what, when and where? I have only called from the airport via my cell phone.

On July 20th I was almost able to phone from the airport to the states for 3.5 cents per minute. I had my laptop with me but was not allowed on prodigymovil (airport wireless) because I wasn't a prodigy customer. I had almost signed up the week before. Were I to have signed up, I could have used the same VoIP account I use in Ajijic to phone the states using my laptop and my wireless airport connection. They were allowing prodigy customers to use their wireless services for free.

Tell us more about this rip off

(This post was edited by johanson on Aug 5, 2004, 12:21 AM)

sfmacaws

Aug 5, 2004, 12:11 AM

Post #3 of 20 (2548 views)

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Re: [johanson] In case anhone is interested

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I'm guessing it was a private pay phone. They are often in airports. A friend of mine once made the mistake of calling the US from the Cancun airport on one of those and the bill for a short call was $48 US dollars. The charge was added to their US phone bill, they contested it and eventually got it removed.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

El Gringo Nuevo

Aug 5, 2004, 10:08 AM

Post #4 of 20 (2474 views)

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I subscribe to the services of "Telesys Communications" out of Marietta, GA. They provide inexpensive communication service from Albania to Zaire (well most everywhere). I dial a toll free local number, hook up with their system in the states and dial most everywhere for cheap, cheap, cheap. This works well for me when calling from Guad to the states for. The high time rate, 8-5 M-F is about .35 USD. per minute. When I call from the U.S. it's much less cost per minute. Their website is www.telesys.cc or in the states dial 1-800-755-5596, or email info@telesys.cc. I've used this service for years and find them quite reputable and inexpensive.

nlnic

Aug 7, 2004, 5:17 PM

Post #5 of 20 (2353 views)

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Re: [El Gringo Nuevo] In case anhone is interested

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Over a year ago, I signed up with ProcommDirect which costs 25 cents/minute from any phone in Mexico to any phone in US. It is charged right to my chargecard on record. Mike Britton owns the service, lives in MexCity and is enormously nice and helpful. No charge when I'm not in Mexico, but it's ready to go when I am there. Ditto calls from US to Mex, I can use the same account I have with him and it is only more $$ when using a pay phone. I never hardly use it from here tho cause I have a service with Quest (at least for now) where my calls to Mexico are only 10-15 cents/minute.
Everytime I've been SoBorder, the service has been flawless and keeps me in touch with (gag) work.
Nancy
Con mi corazon en Mexico!

johanson / Moderator

Aug 7, 2004, 6:04 PM

Post #6 of 20 (2346 views)

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Re: [nlnic] In case anhone is interested

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But even 25 cents per minute is expensive when you could be paying 1 to 4 cents per minute using VoIP technology. All you need is a connection to the internet. Esperanza, using a standard dialup connection has had very good luck with as I recollect www.IconnectHere.com or was it www.delta3.com. She said line quality was equal to or better than call back services. I use the same service with my broadband connection and can usually make fantastic quality calls.

For more detailed info you might enter VoIP into the appropriate box when you click on "Search Posts" above

lmaxine

Aug 8, 2004, 7:12 AM

Post #7 of 20 (2297 views)

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I have been using www.iconnecthere.com for several months and it costs me 1.1 cents a min. to call the US or Canada from my computer. I selected the PC-Phone option, put money into my account with my credit card. I also have Global Phone callback which is 17c a minute, but have hardly used it since I signed on to iconnecthere. The connection is usually quite good.
"He upon whose heart the dust of Mexico has lain will find no peace in any other land." Malcolm Lowry

lrnav

Aug 8, 2004, 8:32 AM

Post #8 of 20 (2283 views)

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What a forum. It seems that whenever I need a bit of info on Mexico and visit Mex Connect someone is already discussing that very subject. This time it was voice over internet. In 2 minutes I found all I really needed to know from you folks and iConnect.

Your right Maxine; 1.1 per/min in US and Canada and only 5.5 per/min from Mexico. Now all I have to do is buy a few accessories and decide on a lap-top and/or cell phone which also works well in Canada. Any suggestions.

We, my wife Olive and I, visited Ajjic in October for a month long famil. trip We are now planning to leave for Lakeside in early October for a six or seven month stay. So will probably be visiting this site a lot more over the next few weeks.

Adios Gracia et al.
Dick and Olive Kirkley

johanson / Moderator

Aug 8, 2004, 9:27 AM

Post #9 of 20 (2269 views)

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Re: [lrnav] In case anhone is interested

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It can actually be 1.1 cents from Mexico to the US and you can drop that to 1 cent per minute by putting in at least $50 and therefore receiving a 10% discount.

But to get it that low you have to buy a package and make exactly X hundred calls per month. I just pay as I go and as I recollect I pay 3.5 cents per minute less my 10% discount.

As long as you have a reasonably good internet connection, you can call from anywhere in the world for that price.

Remember. It's not where you are calling from that counts, because you are using the internet to get to the states.

If when in Ajijic, I call another # in Ajijic, then I pay something like 8 cents per minute, I don't remember. If you want to call around in Mexico for next to nothing, you find a VoIP system that has its equipment based in there. Lagunanet the local ISP was experimenting around with local VoIP equipment last month when I was there.

Bubba

Aug 8, 2004, 11:24 AM

Post #10 of 20 (2250 views)

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Re: [johanson] In case anhone is interested

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On iconnecthere.com we pay 1.1 cents to the U.S. and 4.5 cents to France. We mostly call France. iconnect is very simple to use and we are saving a bundle of money over our old service that was 22 cents a minute or more and a bigger problem to use.

Georgia

Aug 8, 2004, 3:16 PM

Post #11 of 20 (2225 views)

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Re: [johanson] In case anhone is interested

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Telmex has a current offer of 100 minutes anywhere in Mexico for 200 pesos a month.

johanson / Moderator

Aug 8, 2004, 3:30 PM

Post #12 of 20 (2220 views)

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Re: [Georgia] In case anhone is interested

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I guess 200 pesos for 100 minutes is a good deal in Mexico. Thats about 17.5 US cents per minute for example to call you in Jocotepec from Ajijic some ten miles away. Well not everything in Mexicos is more economical than in the states

nlnic

Aug 8, 2004, 5:05 PM

Post #13 of 20 (2203 views)

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Re: [johanson] In case anhone is interested

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Johansen, Thanks for the great info. The VoiP seems like a great thing to use, I would probably keep some kind of calling card available for the times we are in Mexico, since I had several times been in dire need to call the office (in US) at a particular time and had no available internet connection for my laptop. I bet if I could be a bit more organized and get to an internet cafe or someplace like that, I could make my calls then, but I have had instances where that wasn't very easy.
Georgia, is that a Telmex calling card or using your in-home Telmex service??
thanks, Nancy N
Con mi corazon en Mexico!

Judy in Ags

Aug 8, 2004, 5:18 PM

Post #14 of 20 (2198 views)

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I've been using iConnect for about a year now. I was using the North America 400 plan which costs 1.5 cents a minute ($5.95 for 400 minutes a month) to anywhere in North America. I started running out of minutes since my brother-in-law is building a place down here (although he's not physically present--bad idea) so we talk to him a lot. I changed to the 1000 North America plan which is 1000 minutes for $10.95 and it comes out to 1.1 cents per minute). Once in a while I lose the party to whom I'm talking or they lose me and some times the quality isn't great, but calling back often fixes that. I'm not sure if it's the quality of the equipment, but everytime I call our son at work in Golden, CO, the quality is wonderful.

All in all, I've been very pleased with iConnect. I've made a lot of business calls with it. I always just explain at the beginning of the call that I am calling from a PC and they may experience some delay or echo of the voices. I think of how expensive those calls would be when they put me on hold!!

If I'm not mistaken, the $5 bonus for applying $50 to the account has to be used within 60 (I believe it is) days and that's a bust for me because I'd never use that much that fast.

rockydog85251

Aug 9, 2004, 6:51 PM

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Re: [Judy in Ags] In case anhone is interested

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We just signed up today for iconnecthere and when I tried to use it to call the U.S. from Mazatlan, the sound was so broken up that neither party could understand what was being said. I have checked our sound card, etc. and all seems to be in order. I was wondering if any others are having or had a similar experience and
how they dealt with it? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Willie
Willie

Judy in Ags

Aug 9, 2004, 6:58 PM

Post #16 of 20 (2104 views)

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Re: [rockydog85251] In case anhone is interested

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Yes, I have had that experience, but usually it's just one end or the other. You can usually tell if you're going to have a bad connection because the ring has that same broken sound. I wouldn't give up, though. Usually if I get a bad connection, I just ask if I can call back. A couple times I've had to call back a couple of times to get a clear connection. I wouldn't give up, however. When I weigh all the calls I make and the good ones against the bad, the good ones are still out in front AND IT'S CHEAP!

Best wishes!!!

johanson / Moderator

Aug 9, 2004, 9:54 PM

Post #17 of 20 (2077 views)

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Re: [rockydog85251] In case anhone is interested

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Remember, that regardless about what any of us say about whether it will work from our house or not, the real test is the quality of your internet connection, you know what kind of upload and download speeds you experience on your internet connection. If you want to know what your upload and download speeds are from for example Dallas, Texas, you could always go to www.pcpitstop.com, work your way to the internet connection center and start testing

Esperanza in Ajijic, with her dial-up connection has often posted about the great luck she has had using, as I recollect, IconnectHere. I too usually have great luck. But even with a high speed connection to my Internet Service Provider (ISP), there is still the issue of the backbone or the connection from the ISP to where ever. And upon occasion I have had problems, but as others have said, usually all I need to do hang up and phone again.

But if you have a bad modem, a poorly soldered telephone line connection or something else lowering the quality of your dialup internet connection, you are going to have bad luck no matter how many times you hang up and re-dial.

Good luck

ncferret

Aug 10, 2004, 6:05 AM

Post #18 of 20 (2059 views)

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Re: [johanson] In case anhone is interested

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If you need good quality phone service to the US (or Canada/Western Europe), the best option is a broadband connection (DSL, cable modem, etc) and VoIP with either Lingo ($19.95/mo) or Vonage ($29.95) a month - both give unlimited time under these plans.

I used Vonage from Mazatlan for 2 weeks in June through the cable broadband (Megared). No one even knew I was in Mexico. The other advantage of these services, is that you get a phone number in the US, so friends/relatives can call you for next to nothing as well.

talosian

Aug 12, 2004, 7:48 AM

Post #19 of 20 (2003 views)

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Re: [ncferret] In case anhone is interested

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I have had excellent luck with VOIP through YAHOO! and it's IM w/voice. Yes, there is a delay and you have to set up the time for the chat and the other person has to have a computer but the cost is great (Free).

Spock.
"When all logical explanations have failed, we must look to the illogical for the answer.

ncferret

Aug 12, 2004, 7:52 AM

Post #20 of 20 (2002 views)

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Re: [talosian] In case anhone is interested

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With Vonage or Lingo, you use a regular phone and you get a regular phone number (you pick the area code). You call phone to phone, not computer to computer. There is no delay.

www.vonage.com

Do I sound like a salesperson for Vonage?

:)