Sim Cards in the Bahamas

[waterworldly]

I have ATT cellular in an unlocked phone and air card. Has anyone purchased a sim card in the Bahmas for their phone or or air card so that you can use it through the local phone company? I will be going in through Bimini in a week or so, so any info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[CSY Man]

Yeah, bought a BATELCO sim card on the internet. About $0.50 per minutte calling to the US.

Roaming cost about $3.00 per minutte using ATT (Cingular)...

[mikemr]

I bought one in Marsh Harbour last year for $15.00, worked great in an unlocked t-mobile phone with the prepaid minute cards that are available at the batelco offices.

[s/v 'Faith']

I bought a Batelco Sim card and put it into an unlocked phone. I paid $14 at a Batelco office.

I am posting because there were a couple of minor details I wanted to add.

I also bought a $50 card to load minutes onto the card. I noticed after I did that I had a ballance of $42.50. I went back into the Batelco office to ask about it, and was told I had been charged the difference to pay for the 'caller ID' feature. It was corrected and the time aded back after I explainred I did not want the caller ID.

I did get 2 calls from unknown people looking for the prior owners of the number, both calls subtracted from the total minutes.

I left my card (and phone since it was an extra) to a nice couple I met in Bimini on my way home. They paid me for the minutes I had remaining, and mailed my phone to me when they returned to the US. I would suggest anyone leaving look for someone to pass their SIM cards on to when they leave.

I also niticed my ballence was charged more the .50 a minute, and was told that there was a peak and an off peak time to use the minutes. I called after 7pm after that and was charged more like .50 a minute.

This was my expereince and I never found anything on the Batelco web site to confirm the rate change by the time.

All in all it was a good service, and I would recommend it over the very high rates others are charged for using their ATT service while roaming.

[waterworldly]

Thanks for all the great responses. Did anyone try to do this with the sim card in their wireless internet device?

[s/v 'Faith']

I did not try it, I DID ask at the Batelco office though and was told it would not work.

Frankly I probably would have tried it anyway had I ever had trouble finding internet access but I did not so I never tried it. I suspect it would burn through minutes quickly though....

Let us know when you try it.

[sjpm]

Packet switched data like EDGE or GPRS would probably not work on your prepaid SIM, I'm thinking that's what they were trying to tell you.

However, you might want to try CSD mode which is essentially a point-to-point call just like a voice call, except in data mode.

It's circuit switched rather than packet switched. And even though I've never tried it in the bahamas, I'd be surprised if it did not work.

The catch? Well... there's two of them: First, as I said it's essentially like making a voice call, so that means you need a number to call, more specifically, an access number to an ISP. A local one would probably help conserve your minutes but a nice free one (based in New England) is freedialup.org

The second catch is that CSD GSM connections are 9600bps, prepare to be waiting around for whatever it is you access (and of course, your minutes are ticking away while you wait).

Originally Posted by s/v 'Faith'

I did not try it, I DID ask at the Batelco office though and was told it would not work.

Frankly I probably would have tried it anyway had I ever had trouble finding internet access but I did not so I never tried it. I suspect it would burn through minutes quickly though....

Let us know when you try it.