E.T. Phone Home: A Guide to Calling To And From Mexico
Jan 15 '03
The Bottom Line If you're worried about what the best way is to call to and from Mexico, here's the primer you've been waiting for!
Picking up a phone in Mexico can be an alien experience for a lot of people. The phones look different. A lot of phone booths don't take coins. Dialing is different. You need to know codes to get outside the local area. And of course the operators don't speak English (or do they?)
I love travelling in Mexico. Even when I'm not actually plying the highways and byways of the republic, I'm travelling virtually from the comfort of my web browser. I love lurking in some of the Mexico chat rooms that abound on the net, and it never ceases to surprise me how many things that I take for granted, or just don't even think about, turn out to be recurring issues that lots of first-time visitors to Mexico worry about very deeply.
Like the issue of calling home.
Here's some info about how to make calls to, from, and within Mexico -- plus some added tips to save you money.
Calling To the U.S. From Mexico...
Okay, so you told Mom (or the boss) that you'll call and check in each and every day. What do you do?
Well, if you were a total sap you could just pick up the phone in your hotel room and follow the instructions on the easy-to-use handy dandy dialing card conveniently placed by the phone for the convenience of our guests. The card will probably tell you to dial 8 or 9 plus 0 plus maybe 01 followed by the area code and phone number you want to reach. Pretty darn simple!
You can enjoy this convenience at the very competitive rates of just $129 per minute, charged to your American Express Platinum Card (don't leave home without it). Did you note the subtle use of sarcasm here? Just in case my subtle wit managed to slide on past, I'll spell it out: I don't really think this is either "convenient" nor a "competitive rate".
That's not to say that there aren't good ways to call home, there are, they just won't come from your hotel switchboard.
You have a lot of realistic options open to you though. One that I read about in the most recent issue of Arthur's Frommer's Budget Travel magazine (a fine travel magazine, by the way) is to simply check with your cell phone carrier before leaving the U.S. and see if you can use it in Mexico. If so, it could be your best option even if you may get socked with roaming and international use fees. Chances are, if your call is longer than about a minute or two, you'll still do even better with the cell phone than you would using even the best discount long distance service.
One fairly recent development is the appearance of coin-operated pay phones specifically for use in calling the U.S. (I saw these along the hotel strip in Cancun just last month.) Coin-op pay phones are not that common in Mexico -- most are electronic card-operated phones (like the Telmex Ladatel phones). The coin-op phone is straightforward in that you use it just like a U.S. phone -- no need to know how to access an international line nor the U.S. country code -- just pick it up, dial your area code and phone number, and start feedin' the meter!
You can use those Ladatel pay phones though. It just means you need to buy a Ladatel phone card -- sold in almost any convenience store anywhere. Slide the card in and dial -- an LED display shows you how much you're racking up in charges. (Besides, the Ladatel cards look really stylish!)
Nowadays, there are plenty of dial-around services like those used from the U.S. Some work like the popular 800-COLLECT service that people use in the U.S. to "save a buck or two".
You want easy to use? How about English speaking operators who can help you place your call. You can use almost any major U.S. issued calling card, any major credit card, or you can place a collect call. Here are the most popular access numbers for calling from Mexico to the U.S. (or to any other country, for that matter):
* Telmex: 01-800-SAVINGS
* AT&T/Alestre: 01-800-ATT2USA
* MCI Worldcom/Avantel: 01-800-021-HOME
Calling To Mexico From the U.S.
Direct dialing to Mexico is trivially easy. All you have to do is dial "011" to get an international line, "52" for Mexico's country code, then the area code and phone number for whoever you are calling. Give Mom the number of your hotel, and tell her how this works. No fuss, no muss, and Mom will be happy to hear your smiling voice (how a voice smiles, I don't know, but I'm sure if you're in Mexico you will be smiling, unless of course you got picked up by the cops for drunk and disorderly conduct and you're calling Mom for bail money, in which case you might not be smiling at all, but I'll save that subject for yet another fine epinion review -- hopefully complete with a towel count from the republic's finest jail cells, most of which do not serve continental breakfast).
Getting the call through is one thing. Getting it through CHEAPLY is yet another. While 5 cent a minute long distance is common in the U.S., long distance companies often slap you upside the head with $1 a minute charges for calls into Mexico. If you just make one call once in your life, it's no big deal, but if you make many calls, you'll get tired of the highway robbery faster than you can say, "Bob's your uncle." (I got that line from 101 Dalmatians -- "a classic motion picture, destined to be a classic," says mrkstvns, internationally renowned film critic for Epinions Inc.)
There's two easy ways around the high charges. One, buy a prepaid calling card from a company specializing in calls to Mexico (these are usually sold in Mexican groceries and specialty stores in cities with big hispanic populations). Doesn't help you out? Okay, here's another way to save big bucks...
Use a dial around number (also known as "10-10" services). This can potentially save you big bucks -- my calls have been averaging 15-20 cents a minute, about 1/5 to 1/8 what I would have paid to direct dial the calls. The best savings come from companies that specialize in calls to Latin America (such as Americatel, whose dialaround number is 10-10-123, and who I mention because they sponsor "Sabado Gigante", one of my favorite television programs). So, to use Americatel's dial around service to call a number in Mexico, you would dial 10-10-123-011-52-81-8-401-9549. This is a real working number -- it's for my favorite night club in Monterrey (just in case you want to find out what fine musicians are on the lineup for this Friday night). Reviewing what we've learned (and are about to learn), 10-10-123 is the dialaround access number. 011 gives us the international line. 52 is Mexico's country code. And Monterrey uses 8-digit phone numbers.
You can find out more about these services from web sites like: www.infostation.org
Any questions? Good. Let's move on....
Mexican Area Codes
About a year ago, all area codes throughout Mexico changed. While most Mexicans seem to have adapted to the new ways of calling, it still causes some headaches with tourists because even many current editions of Mexican travel guides contain outdated phone numbers -- so do a lot of infrequently updated web sites. If you're leaving a "contact number" with Mom (or the boss), you might want to double-check it to be sure it really works.
Another change is that you need to use the area codes for all calls, including those to cellular phones. A year ago, you didn't always need it because the cell phones almost all had their own "area code" (044). You still use the 044 in a cell phone number, but you must prepend the area code now.
So, how do you know if you have a current area code or not?
If you have what looks like a single-digit area code, you definitely have an outdated number. Up until a year ago, the area codes have been stable for decades -- Mexico City was always "5", Guadalajara was always "3", most of Baja was "6", and Monterrey was always "8". The area codes were the same for towns near a larger city.
Well, that's all changed, and you can no longer even rely on geography to help you figure out codes you don't know. Here's how the new system works...
Mexico's three major cities each have 2-digit area codes. Mexico City is "55". Guadalajara is "33". Monterrey is "81". Everywhere else in Mexico has a 3-digit area code. Even though the cities are ostensibly 2 digits, the numbers are often expanded to 8 digits rather than 7. As a result, almost every number you call within Mexico, you need to use 10 digits (just like in the U.S.) Cell phone numbers will usually be 13 numbers long (remember the 044?).
Here are the correct current area codes for Mexico's most popular tourist destinations (compare this to the numbers in your travel guide to see if they jibe -- if they don't, mine are right):
* Acapulco 744
* Cancun 998
* Los Cabos 624
* Manzanillo 314
* Mazatlan 669
* Merida 999
* Oaxaca 951
* San Luis Potosi 444
* San Miguel Allende 415
* Tijuana 664
* Tuxtla Gutierrez 961
* Veracruz 229
* Zacatecas 492
* Zihuatenejo/Ixtapa 755
Don't see the place you're headed on my list? No worries, here's where you can find the complete list of area codes for Mexico:
www.telmex.com/internos/english/areacode/areacode.html
If you have any problems accessing the list or figuring out how to dial, you can reach Telmex information by calling 011-52-55-5657-58-59. (Remembering our phone lessons, the 011 is how you access an international line from within the U.S., 52 is Mexico's country code, 55 is the area code of Mexico City, and they have 8 digit phone numbers.) This isn't rocket science. It's telecommunications -- much harder than mere physics.
By the way, if you want to save money on your calls ... don't make too many calls to Mexico ahead of time from the U.S. Wait until you're actually in Mexico to arrange anything that doesn't have to be reserved far ahead of time. Domestic long distance calls cost next to nothing, whereas direct dialing from the U.S. tends to cost about $1 per minute. Hey! They don't call me "The World's Cheapest Traveler(tm)" for nuthin'!!
Pick up the Phone -- Give Mom a Call!
As you can see, phone calls don't have to be a big hassle just because they look and act a little different than the ones back home. There are a lot of options open to you, and it pays to shop around and check things out if you're going to be making a lot of calls. Even if it might not seem like big bucks, it's worth saving money where you can. After all that "buck or two" you save could represent 2 ice cold brewskis at happy hour, and who wouldn't rather be drinking beer than giving dollars to the phone company??? Hello? Can you hear me now? Anybody?
Ingredients:
Because there are so many Epinions advisors who feel that ingredients lists are of citical imprtance, I will mention that my telephone contains 1 molded plastic handset that contains some pieces of wire and two flimsy speaker like devices made of aluminum and cardboard. There are a couple of small metal screws in there, plus an RJ11 jack on the end (made of plastic and small pieces of wire). There is a coiled cord connecting the handset to the main phone unit. The cord is made of 8 very thin wires covered with a durable vinyl coating. The handset contains some kind of circuit board with little chips and diodes, some wires hanging off of it -- whoops -- one less wire than it should have now. There are also buttons mounted to a cheesy-looking pad, and of course another RJ11 jack for the handset, plus another RJ11 jack used to connect the phone to a wall jack. This is an older phone and it contains a mechanical bell. More modern phones probably contain little speaker gizmos and sound chips.
Now how the he11 do I get this thing back together??
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