Trip Report - Riiing/united Mobile

[GadgetKen]

Originally Posted by Stu

If anyone has any good suggestions for the Bahamas, I am interested.

Back in the days of analog phones, Batelco also had a minor billing scandal that drove many U.S. carriers away.

Agree with the comment that a satphone would be a possibility for usage in the Bahamas. Globalstar has the best rates for LEO satphone service in the Caribbean, but Iridium would also be a good choice. A satphone would be particularly desirable on a cruise where you visit small islands with no service or when you are at sea and can't pick up a land based tower reliably. Handsets for either service are expensive though, so a short term user might be better off renting one from a dealer.

Batelco does offer their RoCKit gsm prepaid service that offers decent outgoing local rates (Bahamian$.33 peak/$.15 offpeak) but international rates are very high (over $1 a minute). A prepaid international calling card or callback service could be used to get around this. The sim card also is expensive to purchase: $US89 from Telestial or $US99 from Cellular Abroad. Hopefully cheaper purchased in the Bahamas. Not aware of an international callback prepaid sim card (eg United Mobile or Hop) that works in the Bahamas. Relatively few international roaming agreements exist with Batelco (website lists only 27) likely due to the previously mentioned billing scandal.

Got a giggle out of the Domino's Pizza SMS ad. Wonder if they deliver to a cruise ship? :P