Travel Technology - Anyone have Verizon's North America Plan? Having trouble in/out of Mexico?

Hearing reports that as of a few days ago Mexico has changed the way cell calls go in and out of Mexico. Depending on the situation certain dialing patterns have changed as well as it now costs .17cents per minute to anyone calling a cell phone in Mexico. It is confusing and the most confused seems to be Verizon ( 3 calls to tech support produced three different answers). Anyway people are reporting that calls to Verizon cell phones in Mexico are being blocked or not connected...

I was wondering in any FT members have the Verizon North America plan and have experienced difficulty in the last few days with people trying to reach you on your cell phone while in Mexico?

Can't help you with the specific Verizon question, but this article sheds some light on what's going on:

The surcharge was imposed by Mexico's version of the Federal Communications Commission as part of an overhaul of how mobile phone companies bill their customers. For six years, Mexico has been moving toward a system in which the calling party pays all the costs of a call to a cellphone, including long-distance charges. That makes the incoming call free to mobile users.

Mexico's surcharge does not apply to calls made to land-line phones in Mexico or to walkie-talkie systems used by some cellphone carriers. At least four smaller Mexican cellphone carriers have obtained a court order, applying only to them, to block the surcharge.

But the country's largest phone company, Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, said it would abide by the Mexican authority's new fees. The fees are negotiated individually between Mexican phone companies and their counterparts in other countries.

Most of the money collected will go into the coffers of companies controlled by Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Slim, the world's third-richest man with a net worth of $30 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Slim controls Telmex, which has 94% of the Mexican land-line market, and America Movil, whose Telcel subsidiary has 80% of the Mexican mobile market.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-mexfone4nov04,1,403931.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage