bosstone

Hello,
I am coming to Panama for 1 month in July and may stay much longer depending on business. I will be spending a lot of my time in the Bocas area.

My question is which phone service provider is best for a pocket pc phone that needs a data plan? Is there a unlimited data plan with a particular provider? How much are the data plans?

When I arrive in Panama City is there somewhere I can go first thing to get my cellphones setup right away?

Thanks for the help

GeekZ

Is your phone GSM?

bosstone

Yes both my phones are GSM. I just need to know what options are available for data and phone service and what the cost might be.

bosstone

So no one has any information on data plans for cell phones and what the rates are? Also which company to go with? Any help would be great as I leave in 2 days.

MRWOOHOO

I currently use Moviestar but use a prepaid cell phone. That is 10cents a minute. I dont have any specific info outside of that.

GeekZ

Hmmmm, I never used a cell phone in Panama. Maybe you should talk to your current cell phone company - they may have recomendations.

fxtrader

I just got a proper cell phone in Panama. I used Mas Movil (+ Movil is what you'll see on a sign most likely). I got a blackberry as it's what they had in the store. They have a few blackberry models + the Moto Q (which is too big for my tastes) as far as pccket pc's/smartphones go. Anyway, I pay $40/month for 625 minutes and I think $30 for 10MB of data transfer. I also get international calling to the USA for $0.10/minute. I went to the MultiPlaza to get mine (a mall).

If you're bringing your own phone that's great although it'll have to be GSM and "unlocked." I found out early that the quad band phone I brought which does have a sim card, wouldn't work because it wasn't unlocked. Since I am not a resident they took a copy of my passport and required a $200USD deposit as they just don't pull your credit like in the US.

Hmm.. that's it as far as I know. Anything else just ask.

GordonS

I just came across this interesting article on how to avoid huge phone bills while travelling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26763875/

A lot of people would find it extremely traumatic not to be able to talk 10 hours a day. Pretty sure that's why some of these people have these incredibly huge bills mentioned in this article. Some of the conversations going on are so mindless, you wonder if there is a brain attached to the mouth for some people.

__________________
Gordon and Randy,
Canada