Everyone keeps asking about the 'best' plan, so here's the place to archive the info.

With full credit to Powerslave666.

Go to Sanborns on 9th and Rev and buy an "amigo Kit" from Telcel. You will basically get the phone free, as all the money you spend will be kicked back to you in airtime. Cards cost 100 pesos, calls are 4 pesos a minute, incoming calls are free. Important! The cards will expire after 30 or 60 days. Also, if you do not add credit after a certain period, your phone will expire and you will lose your number.

With full credit to Robertosol.

If you have a cell phone, you can take it to a Telcel service center. They can give you a number for $100 pesos, you can then buy cards, or use an ATM to add time. You then have two numbers in your phone, your Verizon or Sprint and the Telcel. Hence if you drive into to TJ, switch your number to the Telcel, call your friends and wait for them to call you back. You can also use that number to call the us or people from the us can call you at that number. If you want two phones, then follow the other suggestions.

With full credit to Hippie.

It may work on Pegaso with some CDMA PCS phones, but NOT Sprint phones.

It also will not work with Cingular, but it will work on Telcel with AT&T and some other TDMA phones.

With full credit to Hippie.

Should have read "will work on Telcel AND Baja Cellular with AT&T and some other TDMA phones."

Ok cel gurus... Since my roaming with Verizon thru Telcel has bit the dust recently, can my AudioVOX TriMode CDMA phone be programmed to use a Telcel number in addition to the Verizon? Would I use the alternate NAM for this? Any details/caveats? The roaming service was only in analog mode which kind of sucked anyway.

shit just buy a Pegaso phone for 600 pesos mas IVA and they will give you 500 pesos in airtime. Only costs you about 15 dollars.

Then I'd have to carry around 2 phones, don't really want to do that. Anyways, found out that Telcel is TDMA. This explains why my Verizon roaming only worked (past tense) in analog as it is CDMA. Baja Celular is CDMA.

Powerslave,

Would I be able to use that cell phone in other Mexican states?

Good hunting.

Pegaso currently works south to Ensenada, east to Mexicali, in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Acapulco, and some other places.

CF, Baja Cellular can be used with at least some of the Verizon phones on the second NAM, if not all of them. I know it worked with the dual mode StarTacs, but have no idea if the tri mode phones present any problems. I don't see why they would, but I am not a cellular engineer. Please post your results, as I am strongly considering getting Verizon and an Audiovox 9100 and was planning to check on this myself. Supposedly, the roaming will be back on in late December, but I don't plan to hold my breath. Telcel goes into analog most of the time even with TDMA phones, which is why everyone complains that their battery life is so short when using the newer phones that were designed for primarily digital use. This is one of the reasons I always recommend Baja Cellular and Pegaso when people ask. I was really surprised when I heard that Verizon had partnered with TelCel for their roaming. Baja Cellular would have seemed to be a much better fit. I am sure it was a business decision, not a technology one.

Since all of your information was very helpful, please allow me to add my two cents. I was in TJ overnight and I was having many problems trying to make calls from the Zona Rio. ( I frequent the Hotel Lucerna when I'm in town ) So this morning I went to the Telcel store which is pretty much right across the street from the hotel, and for $11.00 I had added another line to my phone and was given a 100 peso credit. The customer service rep there stated that I should have no problems making international calls from that area, but I guess all the bugs have yet to worked out. I have ATT service and I use two phones, one for me and one for my novia. I have a Nokia 5165 and a Panasonic TX-220AS. Both are digital phones and both now use the digital network provided from Telcel when I'm in Mexico on the NAM2 line programed into the phones. I can purchase credits at 100, 300, and 500 peso increments. International call are charged at 4.35 pesos per minute.

Hippie, I have the Audiovox 9100 and am very happy with it. It's about the 5th or 6th cel phone I've been thru and my favorite so far.

The Verizon roaming was spotty when it did work. I could almost always make calls but hardly ever receive them. And also since it is analog, you don't get any of the services like message notification, caller ID, etc. I will go over to Baja Celular and see if I can add their digital service to my phone when I have the time and money. Will post results.

It is possible that you might be able to activate a Verizon phone on Pegaso, also, but I don't know anyone who has ever tried. They are also 800MHz CDMA, but Sprint has a pretty large stake in them, so they may not allow it. Also, when my Sprint phone was roaming on Pegaso, it could not not call TelCel cell phones, which really sucked. It worked fine calling Baja Cellular and Pegaso phones. Powerslave, is this true of regular Pegaso cell phones also?
----------------------------

Sundance, you might want to verify that international call rate again. I believe the rate you were quoted is only good for calls to San Diego. I know one person who was charged almost $2 a minute for making a call to Dallas on her TelCel phone. An AT&T phone should pick up TelCel's digital network anywhere it is available. The problem is it does not seem to be available in all that many areas The Zona Rio is one of the best, however. If you leave it turned on when you go inside a club in the Zona Norte, it will probably switch to analog and eat up your battery pretty quickly. Of course, this is probably true of most other services as well.

----------------------------
Thanks CF. If I don't get the Audiovox, I may still go with Verizon and use one of the dual mode Samsung 850's. I have the Sprint version, the 8500, and really like the phone. I just hate Sprint.

I had a strange experience today, I was playing with my Mexican cell phone up in LA, and it started to ring; apparently one of my chica friends happened to call me when I had the phone on.

So, how can my Mexican cell phone receive calls in the USA???

My GUESS: You never heard of ROAMING?

But, I cannot make calls from my Mexican cell phone when in the USA, because it reports no network.

I get calls all the time when I forget to shut my phone off. They are 7 pesos per minute and of course I have to have credit to receive the call.