They charge you by the second now?

I remember when they changed the parking rates by law to be by the minute (and I recall it being something crazy like B/.0.02 per minute), which made it a nightmare to pay at places that didn't have automated machines, as the people there had to do the math. At least the Paitilla hospital was a nightmare to pay.

Regarding phones,

I had Movistar the whole time (actually, the very first phone we got there, a few months before moving, was still a Bell South phone), this because the people at +M Multicentro said they couldn't sell me a SIM card by itself, I HAD to buy a phone too, which I didn't want to, since they didn't have the Moto V600/620, and I was going to buy it elsewhere, but it didn't make sense to buy a phone if I was going to buy another one.

I have no idea about data service or quality of service since this was ages ago and things have surely changed.

I always purchased $5/10/15 refills from Arrocha (whichever ones had tri/cuadruplicame all the time, might have been the $5), since there was one conveniently located for me, and it was rare for them to be out of stock. Back in the day airtime expired depending on the amount (something like 2 weeks for $5, a month for $20, etc) and I believe the cost per minute also varied on how much you loaded, but then with the 3x/4x offers and rarely using my phone, I ended up with over $1000 of airtime (yes, one hundred Benjamins), which was impossible to deplete, even with daily calls to Mexico. One thing that is extremely cheap there are international calls.

Honestly, I think that the stores in Multicentro/Multiplaza are far easier to find for visitors than navigating Via Espaņa or Calle 50.