Verizon finally brings back discount Mexico roaming packages...!!

[tridacna]

So I get to Mexico and my phone will not work. I tried logging into verizonwireless.com but that doesn't work. I called Verizon on Skype, but the computer just tells me to log in. I called the number Verizon sent me by text on arrival in Mexico for roaming help, but that fails too.

I went to Verizonwireless.com for a live chat. He said that they have had a large problem with customers trying to log in from outside the US and he filed a trouble ticket for me. He claimed that I had never added at Global Plan so that my phone would not work, but I am sure I added the Mexico plan - saw it on my account when I could log in. He told me to turn my phone off, on, and wait 30 minutes.

He also said their system will not take Skype calls. I can call my cell phone from skype and hear mself fine on the test call, and can text ok.

What a mess.

I rest my case. I'm in Israel now. Going to Jordan next then Egypt. Took my Fi phone. Just works. No SIMs to buy; No data plans. Nothing. No high fees. Could not be any simpler. Getting a SIM card in each country would be a giant expensive PITA and using my AT&T iPhone would just be stupidly expensive.

---------- Post added May 29th, 2015 at 07:58 AM ----------

How kind, thanks! I don't actually need my cell to work, but it was supposed to - so I want it to! I wonder if my text to you failed because I treated it like a US number? Was that a Mexican number?

I have to go back to Cancun Friday afternoon for a fitting. I'll FB you when I get back and see what your plans are for the weekend.

I took my out-of-viz pony and some other gear to Tres Pelicans today, hoping they could help me with the issue, then get it filled for tomorrow. They were very nice. Gave me a ride to Scuba Repair back off of 90th Ave, took me in and asked the expert repair man to look, and he did - saying all that anyone cared about on the island was Hydro, which is good to 2017. They don't check viz at the fill station.

I thought that VIPs were a uniquely American experience anyway? Just a quick way for an LDS to have annuity income.

 

[cvchief]

I thought that VIPs were a uniquely American experience anyway? Just a quick way for an LDS to have annuity income.

Huh? No comprende?

 

[Sloeber]

Getting a SIM card in each country would be a giant expensive PITA.

That is just not true at all. Many countries give away free SIM cards. Fiji, for example, hand out free SIM cards to tourists as they pass through customs. Hardly a "giant expensive PITA." Mexico charges 150 peso ($10) at Telcel which includes data, minutes, and texting. If finding one of the many TelCel locations is a PITA, and $10 is expensive, I'd say international travel is probably not up your alley.

 

[islanddream]

I got the Mexico plan from Verizon for a trip to Coz a couple years ago for my cell phone. I never could get a signal. What a waste of money!! I check my email several times a day when in Coz, so I just tell people to email me if they need me. I also give them the number for the Blue Angel if there's an emergency.

 

[morey000]

Phone calls? people still make phone calls? What I want is data! To be able to look up maps, travel information, get my email, etc. So verizon has a nice plan for $15 where you get a whopping 100Mb of data. You'll use that fast.

And their data rates for mexico are $5.12 per Megabyte. That doesn't sound bad, until you realize that if you use a pretty standard 2Gbytes per month, it would cost $10,000. Their "rest of the world" global data rate is a quite reasonable $20.48 per Mbyte. So- go through your normal 2G in a month, and they've got you for a clean $41,000.

Thing is- data plans for local residents of most foreign countries, are far cheaper than the $30/2Gbytes I pay on Verizon. i.e. there's no reason for Verizon to charge these ridiculously exorbitant fees. It's merely a total screw-job. It's for people who forget (or don't know enough) to put their phone on airplane mode and all their apps are just polling data every now and then and running up their Verizon bill.

When I travel:
Airplane mode.
Wifi (and then use the Viber app to make calls, which is one of the VOIP apps)

 

[Firefyter]

People are always telling me how terrible Sprint is compared to Verizon. I've been a Sprint customer for over 15 years and I'm loving it more and more. In the past, though, Sprint's International plans were just so-so or non-existent. I always get a good signal, but the data was expensive, texts were expensive, and calling home from Cozumel was $1.69 per minute. That's all changed now with their new International Value Roaming plan, which costs me exactly $0.00.

From the Sprint Website:

"Unlimited international data and text. Add Sprint International Value Roaming to any plan and get free unlimited data* and text. Plus calls are just 20¢/min. in any of our International Value Roaming countries."

Now this is only 2G speeds, but plenty fast for email. If I feel the need for 3G I can buy day, week, or 2 week passes with limited 3G data.

You guys keep paying those exorbitant Verizon fees for service you can't even use, I'll stay where I am for now. If I do change, it will be for the Google Fi. I'm just waiting for some friends to beta test that in my home area before I jump on it...

 

[DandyDon]

I rest my case. I'm in Israel now. Going to Jordan next then Egypt. Took my Fi phone. Just works. No SIMs to buy; No data plans. Nothing. No high fees. Could not be any simpler. Getting a SIM card in each country would be a giant expensive PITA and using my AT&T iPhone would just be stupidly expensive.

I don't know. Many others have told me their Verizon phones work in Coz ok, and mine has before. They are having a technical issue with out of country logins on accounts, but I don't know why I am the only one who can't call home? Rare problems happen.

I thought that VIPs were a uniquely American experience anyway? Just a quick way for an LDS to have annuity income.

Do you mean VIZes? Visual inspections? Maybe so. Annual VIZes are safer, and it's always so messy when a tank explodes, spreading body parts and all.

Huh? No comprende?

I think he was talking about annual VIZes, which aren't done in Coz it seems.

I got the Mexico plan from Verizon for a trip to Coz a couple years ago for my cell phone. I never could get a signal. What a waste of money!! I check my email several times a day when in Coz, so I just tell people to email me if they need me. I also give them the number for the Blue Angel if there's an emergency.

Your phone may have problems. I have always found good signals here. I can text fine from Caleta, town, halfway across the channel...

 

[tridacna]

That is just not true at all. Many countries give away free SIM cards. Fiji, for example, hand out free SIM cards to tourists as they pass through customs. Hardly a "giant expensive PITA." Mexico charges 150 peso ($10) at Telcel which includes data, minutes, and texting. If finding one of the many TelCel locations is a PITA, and $10 is expensive, I'd say international travel is probably not up your alley.

Two things to say.

1. I was on the original dev team of the SIM card. Headed up software R&D for a telcom phone company. I know a "little" about how cell phones work.

2. Travel? I'm a United 2M Passenger. I was Global Services for a while. I'd say international travel "may" be up my alley. I used to do >20,000 miles per month. The last thing I want to do when I travel is change SIMs, carriers and phone numbers. Not when you're a serious traveler. (Once a year to Cozumel don't count). I also don't like paying silly rates. Try Vietnam, Laos or Uganda. We had a maxim that stated that cell rates are in inverse proportion to the level of democracy in a country. There was a time when using "callback" could get you a prison sentence in some countries.

This entire clusterf$ck is caused by only one thing: carrier greed. Wholesale minutes are priced at tiny fractions of a penny/min. Margins are measured in astronomically high percentages. Until someone steps in and disrupts this mess, it will continue ad infinitum. Google is trying to do just that.

It makes a real difference when you arrive, just turn on your phone and it works. For fun, I checked the price of a SIM yesterday in Israel: $10! Carrier cost is about 2c! Giving it away makes sense...if only.

---------- Post added May 29th, 2015 at 05:25 PM ----------

Huh? No comprende?

Do SCUBA stores in countries other than the USA insist on annual tank inspections? I know that Hydros (or variants thereof) are de facto in most places. I'm not really sure about visual inspections. Anyone know?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tr6tevens]

My brother literally just went to the Verizon store yesterday because he's coming today. They told him not only that there was no roaming plan but also that my nephew's (Verizon CDMA) iPhone wouldn't even be able to roam here. Idjits.

Worse than that - did get the roaming added. Didn't work. Got back to the US, and the phones didn't work here either. Turns out that somehow adding roaming IN PERSON at the Verizon store, and then having the audacity to try to use it in Mexico the next day, triggers a fraud alert and has them completely disable the phone number, requiring another in person visit. I recommend that if you add roaming, do it a bit in advance. Or just get a cheap Telcel SIM.

 

[mmmbelows]

That is just not true at all. Many countries give away free SIM cards. Fiji, for example, hand out free SIM cards to tourists as they pass through customs.

I just returned from Fiji a few days ago, I wasn't handed a free sim card nor did I see anyone else being handed any. What exactly are you referring to?

By-the-way, I haven't seen mention of it with all this talk of verizon and sprint, but is no one aware that t-mobile has free international phone use in 125 foreign countries which includes mexico, all you have to do is ask them to add that plan to your phone for free, you've got free calls back to the US, free data (internet/email) and calls/texts to mexican phone numbers are just cents per minute. No sim cards, no nothing, just use your phone like you do back in the states, with a 2 week vacation you might have a couple of dollars extra on your bill when you get back.