Cellphone in Buenos Aires
 

I will be living in BsAs for the next few months and need to get a cellphone there... any thoughts/remarks/recommendations are appreciated.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

If you have an unlocked GSM phone... just buy a prepaid card and you should be fine.

I was in Buenos Aires a couple of months ago and brought an unlocked cell phone (GSM 1900/850) and obtained a prepaid SIM chip while there at the Movistar office downtown located at Corrientes 665. Bring you passport or other identity documents with you to have it activated (other locations take up to a day to have the phone/sim activated). The prepaid cards to recharge are available all over the city.

Yeah - just buying a chip on pay as you go is the way to go.

I'm on Movistar who give you monthly offers when topping up like 50% extra. Just be careful that you do top-up every month though as they will zero your balance out if you don't. Although they usually give it back to you if you top-up within the week.
Having said that when I was away abroad for a month they zeroed me out and I lost 120 pesos worth of credit - so they're not exactly my flavour of the month just now. :mad:

The prepaid phones available in Argentina are expensive for what they are. Gaucho's recommendation is good - bring in an unlocked GSM phone. I bought a phone in Argentina last year (Movistar) and it is ok enough for my needs - just don't put more money on it than you think you will need - the minutes will expire eventually. (Also, remember that you don't pay to receive calls there.)

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

Also be on the lookout for 2 for 1 promos..... when you buy new minutes you can get extra credits depending on how much you buy.

I have a basic Nokia model with Movistar SIM card complete with charger which I no longer use. If you would like that, it's yours. The line is already activated so you would just need to buy top-up cards to add credit. PM me if interested.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; Series60/5.0 NokiaN97-3/10.2.012; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1; en-us) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) WicKed/7.1.12344)

Guys... Maybe we can start a FT public service...?

This Nokia phone could be donated to the FT community.. After one visitor uses it, he can leave it with a FTer that resides in EZE... When the next visitor comes to town, it passes to him/her...

What do you guys think...?

Sounds like a great idea Gaucho ^. It would be a simple thing to organise and benefit as many people as possible. No one really wants to buy a new phone and activate a new line when they are only going to be using it for a couple of weeks or so.

I'm happy for this Nokia to be the first phone in the pool so if anyone coming to EZE would like to make use of it, please PM me.

Excellent... ^ ^ ^

If the departing FTers doesnt have another incoming FTers to pass on the phone to, or if the actual hand-off is difficult to implement due to conflicts of schedule, then I can volunteer to take the mobile phone "into custody" until the next FTer gets into town.

I will speak to the senior mod in charge to make a stick thread about this. Thank you britenbsas for donating this phone... ^ ^ ^

Here is the thread I started...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/argen...orary-use.html

Does not the phone # expire if not used within a certain time period (i.e. 6 months?) - just something to keep in mind that it would have to be used once in a while if "no takers" for a time period.

Yes, I think the above is true.... will have to make a few calls and maybe even a minimum reload to keep the number "alive"... ^

Good point. I haven't actually used this phone or put any credit on it since February - I just tried calling it and the line is still active. 6 months inactivity sounds about right but just sending 1 text message every 5 months or so should keep it alive.

It is quite cheap to buy a cell phone and have it unlocked in EZE. I bought one on eBay for $10, and paid 45 pesos for a sim card and to get it unlocked. I've used the same phone in 5 different countries, and it worked fine.