For those of you who monger in Panama, here are some cellular telephone options for you to consider:

Cingular and AT&T wireless recently merged. If you have a relatively new dual band GSM telephone, and if you subscribe to Cingular/AT&T,
for $3.99/month you can activate international roaming. According to the Cingular rep I spoke with, you can call from the states to
Panama "as if" you were making a regular telephone call in the US...no additional minutes will be used from your regular bucket of
minutes that you purchase every month...hence the $3.99 monthly fee.

Likewise, from Panama to the states works the same way...however, the Cingular rep tried to find-out if certain areas of Panama were
subject to an additional roaming charge...I could have waited for his computer to spit-out the answer, but as usual, the computers were
running slow.

Also, when in Panama, you can call locally, but again, you may or may not be subject to roaming charges, depending upon your location.

Since I do not regularily make calls to or from Panama, the $3.99/month option is not ideal for me. However, next-time I go to Panama I will take my dual band DSM Nokia to a cell phone repair kiosk and buy a cell phone SIM chip that works in Panama. Cost is approximately $25. When I return to the US, I simply pop-out the Panama SIM chip and replace it with my original Cingular SIM chip.
For a $25 investment, I will have a cell phone that works in both the US and Panama. The only drawback...the Cingular rep told me that my
cell phone would track my minutes usage while in Panama...when I get within range of Cingular/AT&T cell phone towers within the US with my Cingular SIM chip in-place, the amount of minutes I used my phone while in Panama will be duducted from my monthly bucket of minutes here in the states (In essence paying twice). But , for me that is no big deal because I do not make lengthy telephone calls while in Panama anyway. Yet, I will get the convenience I desire and I will deal with only one cell phone, two SIM chips, and two telephone numbers.

Does anyone know how do I buy minutes for my converted cell phone within Panama? Seems to me I must buy a pre-paid calling card and load the minutes into my phone...then consume the minutes until I run-out, then repeat the process, but I am not sure. I do know that in Panama they do not have regular accounts and monthly bills like we see here in the states since Panama doesn't have routine nor reliable mail service.

Thanks.

AlecJamer

A friend in Panama just told me that on my next trip to PC I can purchase a pre-paid cell phone from Bell South (Panama) with $80 worth of minutes already loaded for only $80. In essence the phone would be free. Only drawback I can think of is the pre-paid minutes probably expire if they go unused after a certain period of time. Since I travel to Panama for only two weeks every year...I'd probably use only $20 of the $80 worth of minutes. However, I would still have the phone and on future trips I can purchase only as many minutes as I need.

Next question of course, is how good is the phone?

But, something for any of you mongerers to consider next time you head to Panama.

ciao,

AlecJamer