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Michael

Nov 30, 1919, 12:00 AM

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Telephone Service in Tijuana

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Can anyone tell me what cell phone time cost in Tijuana? Waht is available there that would allow me to establish a dependable way for my finacee to call me without cost to her. She only has a cellualr phone, and I prefer to responsible for the phone expense. 
When I lived in Saudi Arabia, I quickly learned "fax" was the majic in communicating to the states rather than letters. Is this available in TJ. IE: Office Depot or such centers?

Nov 30, 1919, 12:00 AM

Post #2 of 2 (874 views)

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Telephone Service in Tijuana

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: Can anyone tell me what cell phone time cost in Tijuana? Waht is available there that would allow me to establish a dependable way for my finacee to call me without cost to her. She only has a cellualr phone, and I prefer to responsible for the phone expense. Based on your previous message thread, I'm working on the assumption that you're looking for a way for your fiance in Tijuana to call you in the US. International calling from Mexico using a Mexican carrier is expensive, either via a landline (a quaint term....) or cellular, and when you add in reverse billing (i.e. collect calling and the like) the cost becomes mind boggling. If you have a US home phone installation to connect the billing to, I'd suggest looking at one of the major long distance carriers (AT&T, Sprint, MCI) for an international calling plan. As an example (and make sure to read the caveats that follow), I currently have an MCI calling plan ("MCI Anytime Worldwide") that bills me a flat rate of $0.19/minute 24/7 for (a) calls originating from my home phone line associated with the plan to Mexico, (b) collect calls from Mexico to the same home phone number, when the calls are placed using the MCI international network, and (c) calling card calls to or from Mexico made with the calling card issued for the account.Checking the plan rate sheet, calls to the 100 mile or zone border zone which would include Tijuana are billed at an even better rate of $0.10/minute.This means that your novia could call you at the fixed rate from either a pay phone or possibly her cellular (depending on the calling plan she's got she may or may not be able to call the toll-free network access number she'll need to use; some of the pre-paid plans block toll free numbers). You in the meantime could call her cellular from your home phone number or another phone (office, cellular, etc.) using your calling card. Finally if the trust factor is there (you can get a major phone bill run on you if the number gets out) you can provide your novia with your calling card number, which she could then use to call you at your office and/or cellular numbers (the AT&T version of the same international calling plan had a feature where they'd issue you a second calling card, which could only be used to call a pre-approved list of phone numbers. I dropped it because MCI was offering a better per minute rate and frequent flyer miles).The downsides of such calling plans are that you normally pay a plan fee every month regardless as to whether you've used the plan during the month. MCI's currently charging me $4/month but I've seen others in the range of $2-8/month. In MCI's particular case, their billing practices are absolutely horrendous - you have to check your phone bill every month to verify that your calls have been rated correctly (they're particularly bad about the collect calls), and spend blocks of time on the phone with customer service to get what can be several hundred dollar overcharges corrected (typically you have to get the call elevated through several levels of customer service to get somebody who can spell CAT without having to be spotted a C and an A.).