You should be able to pick up an AT&T Go Phone sim from ebay in the US, otherwise you'll have to fit in a bit of US shopping on your way to Mexico. As you'd expect they're not sold in Mexico.

Remember it'll cost $100 a year to keep the Go Phone active. Telcel costs 600 pesos or $50 a year to keep active, has cheaper data in Mexico, and (the most important point for me) it has a local number that people locally can call. I forward US/UK numbers to my Mexico mobile for much less than Go Phone's incoming charge.

Good point about needing to keep them active.
Yes, I managed for quite a bit cheaper too. The only problem is incoming to Telcel when you are elsewhere in Mexico and not in your LADA. That is quite expensive IMO.

However, just out of interest, who do you use and how much do they charge?

Mainly I now use Localphone US with a US number, with voip on the phone via wi-fi when I'm at home, failover to divert to Telcel mobile when I'm out of range, 8.8c/min for the divert.

Most outbound non-local calls are when I'm at home so they're the same VOIP account (plus some alternatives), can also use Google Voice callback. I have some other incoming numbers in various countries that forward either to the Localphone US number or the sip address, so they work out the same or 1-2c/min more.

I still have a divert on my eKit US/Can. On the dual sim it's probably different, but on my one-number eKit sim it's now 9c/min to divert to Mexico mobile, with no connect charge.

I've very rarely been outside my home Mexican area code (it's 150 miles long) so domestic roaming isn't a factor for me.

An AT&T Go Phone would be interesting for my non-technical neighbours (mostly Americans). Not something I need while my current setup works.

Rob

Thanks Rob. Looks like you have a nice setup!

I had forgotten about localphone for giving me a free DID. I presume there are no problems of diverting incoming calls from your mobile onto a mapped Localphone number are there? e.g. If Localphone give me a Madrid +3491 number mapped to my Telcel SIM, I presume there will be no problems if I setup my Spanish phone to divert all calls to the +3491?

On my last trip to Mexico, for incoming calls to my main UK phone I had no problems of doing a divert via a UK DID and a Betamax provider (I used 12voip.com at 7c/min to Mexico mobile). That all worked grand! However, I had troubles on a friends last trip as I needed to divert her Spanish contract phone to my Mexico number. I used a free Spanish DID provider called Netelip who wouldn't allow a divert to SIP and I was stuck with their rates of 18c/min with 60/60 billing!! I eventually worked around it to some extent by diverting from them via my UK DID.. but the delay was awful!

Does Localphone do free DIDs for Spain, for customers from Spain? On their US site the Spanish numbers cost $3/mo plus $5 setup (and there are no free US DIDs). If you can forward from a Spanish mobile to UK landline or the US for a similar cost as Madrid you could use a number from ukddi.com or ipkall.com - they have worked for me pointing to the localphone sip address.

I can't see any reason why the call coming from a forwarded mobile would cause any difference.

Rob

I will be spending a week in Puerto Vallarta in December with my family. I plan on getting a couple of AT&T GoSims from ebay. The $0.25 to call the US and (may be mexico?) is a good deal. This sounds like my best option for voice. All the other sims I have charge insanely high rates in Mexico.

Here's a question about AT&T Go: My local store here in Chicago says they will give me the SIM along with however much money I put on it.

Let's say I put $15 on and use $14 while I'm in Mexico in December.

I return and after $0 days the GO phone is inactive.

Can I reactivate it in a few months simply by putting more money on? Or do I have to go into the store and get another free SIM?

Also, the people at the store say that I can't top up a card online whilst in Mexico. That has to be wrong. Right?

I believe the credit is lost once the sim becomes inactive. You should be able to topup online from anywhere as long as you have access.

Cancel Date//Account Balance Expiration Date
 

The Cancel Date is two months after the Account Balance Expiration Date.
But what happens if you run out of money before the Account Balance Expiration Date????

Now that I have been to Mexico.
 

My cruise ship stopped at Ensenada Monday. Yes it does charge 25cents a minute. Now the wierd issue. When I did *777# for my balance it would send a message that the last transaction cost $3.00. I did that three times. When I got home I checked the online account info. It did not show the $3.00 charges. But adding the $9 and my usage and the current balance equals the $25 I put in at the start of the month. A call to customer service got me a credit for the $9. So if you happen to go to Mexico. Don't check your balance too often.