CTI MOVIL SIM CARD @ paraguay y florida
YES, it does work! Thanks to all the good info on the site, I finally have solved my cell phone problems in BA. CTI Movil is selling sim cards, which they call chips. They can only to purchased at the Florida Y Paraguay location for 10 pesos with 10 pesos worth of time. The ground level lobby has an information line. They then have you wait. They verify that the chip works in your phone ie that it is unlocked. They sell you the chip after installation. I paid after the intallation at the cashier on level over the ground level.
The service did not start until 90 minutes after the install. I had to make a second visit because they failed to provide the free 10 pesos of time during the first visit.
Cti has nation wide service at no additional cost. i called Mendoza for the same price as ba. I also called Ruffino, a small city in southern Santa Fe Provice with no problem. My chica's Movistar phone has no service there. The guy i saw there had two phones: one for ba and a second for Ruffino.
The phone must be charged with additional time or you lose the number after 90 days. I put 50 pesos on the phone which i will lose if i don't charge the phone again for 60 days. They have a promotion where you get 80 peso of time for 50 pesos. 10 peso cards provide a cost of 1 peso per minute and 50 peso cards cost 62 centavos per minbute. This yields a per minute cost of about us$ 0.20 per minute to call anywhere in argnetina.
CTI's service is not as reliable as the non-gsm services that i have used before. cti has more dropped calls or connection failures than i am used to in ba. It still is within the range of reason. My chica uses Movistar. Cti has better service than Movistar in terms of reception and dropped calls.
WITHOUT SPEAKING SOME SPANISH I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THE CTI MOVIL SIM CARD PURCHASE AND ADJUSTMENT. NO ONE SPOKE ANY TYPE OF ENGLISH WITH ME. POSSIBLY MY SPANISH IS BETTER THAN THEIR ENGLISH. I WAS RATHER UPSET WHEN I HAD TO RETURN BECAUSE I DID NOT RECEIVE THE 10 PESOS CREDIT I WAS PROMISED AND A LITTLE ENGLISH SPEAKING CUSTOMER SERVICE WOULD HAVE MADE MY LIFE A LOT EASIER.
PHONERENTAL.COM is the best of the other rental services for low useage and no long distance. There is no rental fee. The time charges add up and they charge for in-coming calls. They speak enough english to do the job and deliver and pick-up. 10% discount for cash.
Bob
Cell phone in Argentina: 850 MHz?
Thanks everyone for the information about GSM phones.
Information from this board says that I will need GSM 1900 MHz.
I have seen elsewhere that Argentina uses both 850 and 1900 MHz.
It makes a difference, whether I buy a tri-band (900. 1800, 1900) or a quad-band phone (considerably more expensive).
Anyone who knows, please let me know if 1900 MHz is sufficient for Argentina, or if I need both 850 and 1900.
(I will also be in Brazil, so I need 1800 for sure).
CTI store - Corner of Paraguay and Florida
Last Saturday morning a bought a local SIM card for my unlocked GSM phone from the CTI store at the corner of Paraguay and Florida for 10 pesos with 10 peso airtime included. That store does not sell airtime card (Tarjeta de CTI) there so to top off I would have to go to a local store. An ID card / passport was needed to register the card to my name. I was told the SIM card must be topped off at least once every three months or the card will be useless from then on. But when I call for the credit remaining on the card, it mentioned the date one month from now, so I don't know if it will expire in one month or three months. Air time costs 70 centavos per minute for local calls – probably not a very good deal. The sales rep (whom BTW spoke decent English and cute) told me the card would be activated within 40 minutes to 1 hour. I got two text messages from CTI within one hour – one welcoming message and one with a password to view my account online. I thought everything was fine. Then when Stowe tried to call me and got a message saying my line was not registered. I could not make an outgoing call either. By then the CTI store is closed already and will not be opened on Sunday, so I had to wait until Monday morning to straighten it out.
First thing on Monday I went to the store, wouldn't you know it now the phone was working. However on Tuesday I left a message for Roxanna using my phone, she told me later when she tried to return my call and was told the phone line was not registered again. I have made calls and received calls later that day though. So I'm not sure what was going on. Well, at least the card only cost 10 pesos with 10 pesos airtime. I did not have to top off with anymore airtime and still have about 4 pesos of airtime when I left BsAs. I don't use the phone much and my stays are usually pretty short, this deal seems to be ok for me. If I were to use a phone more extensively, then renting a phone from Jackson would have been more economical since the airtime on his phones costs a lot less.
I hope this help and can provide an alternative for those have the kind of phone usage as me. Ana Luna told me the Movistar store across the street from that CTI store sells prepaid phone SIM card too. And it opens on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday too. A big plus if you run into problem over the weekend like I did. Does anyone know what kind of deals they provide?
