Communications in Caribbean

[rubberduck]

Hi All,

Have done a bit of searching on this but things in the communication world change so fast i thought i would ask again.

Thinking of making the hope to the Caribbean next year. Currently in the Med with good data communication through our 4G plan (me and the partner each have 100gb a month). We use almost all of this for work.

I know communication in the Caribbean is hard, wondering if anyone had any good solutions for the area? Google Fi, maybe other phone providers with good deals, local providers, etc. etc.

Any thoughts would be appreciated so we can get it sorted before we go.

[masonc]

Digicel has probably the best coverage, you can get a top up account and use it in almost all the islands, with some caveats. Check out their offering, it seems to be improving with time.

[Zanshin]

Geographically and politically (which means economically) the Caribbean is a big place. Each country has its own cell phone service or service plans and only some of them work across several islands.

So you would need to be more explicit regarding which part(s) of Caribbean you intend to travel in. For example, I'm in the BVI right now. One can receive U.S. signals from St. Thomas/St. John in many places, but the bigger local carrier is "Flow" (https://discoverflow.co/british-virgin-islands/) which has some digital plans. But if you head to the nearest islands in the chain at St. Martin you have 2 additional cell phone systems (and frequencies). Either the European bands and carriers such as Orange, or the american frequencies and other carriers.

The French islands (St. Martin, St. Barths, Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc.) all use the European system. I've had little luck with digicel in the past, but that might have changed in the past year.

[DefinitelyMe]

We have a French Digicel plan, bought in Martinique. It works in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, St. Barts and French St. Martin.

It is supposed to also work in Antigua, Aruba, Anguilla, Barbados, Barbuda, Bermuda, Bonaire, Curacao, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, French Guyana, the Caymans, BVI’s, Jamaica, Montserrat, Panama, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos.

This second list appears not to be reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes you have to re-register the phone on the network every ten minutes. In these cases the local Digicel providers are useless and will just tell you you have to go back to the point of purchase and that they can’t guarantee service.

It doesn’t work in Dutch St. Maarten, Saba or Statia that we know of.

Despite it’s problems it still seems to be the most versatile service available. I don’t think any local provider will guarantee service across all of the islands.

When it works it works well. Mind you, we’ve only recently re-joined the ‘developed’ world so our perspective might be a little squiffy.

Hope this helps.

[sck5]

Buy a new sim card when you get to a new island (which means a new country) They are cheap and you should gladly pay the $10 (or whatever it is) rather than deal with trying to make a cell plan from another island work. Just because the name is still "Digicel" doesnt mean it will work anywhere but the island you bought it in.