Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 21 to 31 of 31

Thread: 06/2008 - Viva SIM cards

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Michigan
    Age
    70
    Posts
    8,820
    Blog Entries
    3
    Thanks
    74,636
    Thanked 76,190 Times in 8,046 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Quote Originally Posted by LM View Post
    Yep.......sim cards are cheap....
    Great! Thanks allot for the info.

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Montreal
    Age
    53
    Posts
    368
    Thanks
    15
    Thanked 70 Times in 18 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Hey Tiger89,be careful when purchasing a quad band phone. Not all quad band phones work in the DR. If a phone is set up to work in Europe, it probably will not support GSM 1900. Those phones support GSM 1800.
    If you read this thread again, you will see that if a phone does not support GSM 1900 or CDMA 1900, it will not work in the DR.

    IMO, the best phone you can purchase for the DR is an UNLOCKED, GSM 1900 phone. You can get them on ebay all day long. Cheap too. If it is tri band or quad band, all you need to do is read the description and make sure the phone has GSM 1900. I purchased a Blackberry and it works great.

    Your service quality will depend on which phone company you go with. Personally, I like Viva. The chip is about $3 dollars (100 pesos) and it is the same price to call the USA as it is to call any where else in the DR. However, I am not so sure Viva's service is strong on the north coast. I do know that Orange and Claro work good there. But if you purchase the correct phone for the job, you can get what ever chip you want. I have two Viva chips and a Claro for a back up for when I am in the campo.

    Remember this and you can't go wrong: UNLOCKED, GSM 1900.

  3. The Following User Says Thank You to Vincent Vega For This Useful Post:


  4. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Michigan
    Age
    70
    Posts
    8,820
    Blog Entries
    3
    Thanks
    74,636
    Thanked 76,190 Times in 8,046 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Quote Originally Posted by wmarks345 View Post
    Hey Tiger89,be careful when purchasing a quad band phone. Not all quad band phones work in the DR. If a phone is set up to work in Europe, it probably will not support GSM 1900. Those phones support GSM 1800.
    If you read this thread again, you will see that if a phone does not support GSM 1900 or CDMA 1900, it will not work in the DR.

    IMO, the best phone you can purchase for the DR is an UNLOCKED, GSM 1900 phone. You can get them on ebay all day long. Cheap too. If it is tri band or quad band, all you need to do is read the description and make sure the phone has GSM 1900. I purchased a Blackberry and it works great.

    Your service quality will depend on which phone company you go with. Personally, I like Viva. The chip is about $3 dollars (100 pesos) and it is the same price to call the USA as it is to call any where else in the DR. However, I am not so sure Viva's service is strong on the north coast. I do know that Orange and Claro work good there. But if you purchase the correct phone for the job, you can get what ever chip you want. I have two Viva chips and a Claro for a back up for when I am in the campo.

    Remember this and you can't go wrong: UNLOCKED, GSM 1900.


    Thanks for taking the time to share that with me. I really appreaciate it!

  5. #24
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Age
    60
    Posts
    19,564
    Thanks
    5,727
    Thanked 50,505 Times in 13,124 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Quote Originally Posted by wmarks345 View Post
    Hey Tiger89,be careful when purchasing a quad band phone. Not all quad band phones work in the DR. If a phone is set up to work in Europe, it probably will not support GSM 1900. Those phones support GSM 1800.
    If you read this thread again, you will see that if a phone does not support GSM 1900 or CDMA 1900, it will not work in the DR.

    IMO, the best phone you can purchase for the DR is an UNLOCKED, GSM 1900 phone. You can get them on ebay all day long. Cheap too. If it is tri band or quad band, all you need to do is read the description and make sure the phone has GSM 1900. I purchased a Blackberry and it works great.

    Your service quality will depend on which phone company you go with. Personally, I like Viva. The chip is about $3 dollars (100 pesos) and it is the same price to call the USA as it is to call any where else in the DR. However, I am not so sure Viva's service is strong on the north coast. I do know that Orange and Claro work good there. But if you purchase the correct phone for the job, you can get what ever chip you want. I have two Viva chips and a Claro for a back up for when I am in the campo.

    Remember this and you can't go wrong: UNLOCKED, GSM 1900.

    You are thinking of a tri band, if it is a quad band it will have 1900, Not all tri bands will work.

    I wouldn't bother with CDMA pphones, stick to GSM. Claro was moving to GSM when I was there in 2007, and Orange was always GSM.

  6. The Following User Says Thank You to Kevy For This Useful Post:


  7. #25
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Montreal
    Age
    53
    Posts
    368
    Thanks
    15
    Thanked 70 Times in 18 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    There is another option. If you are staying in a hotel that has high speed internet and you have a laptop or they have computers available for your use, you can go to Magicjack.com and purchase their product for $40.00. That breaks down this way. It is a one time $20.00 charge for the device and $20.00 a year for the service.

    You plug the Magicjack into a USB port and then connect a regular house phone to the Magicjack. You can then call any phone in the USA for free no matter where you are in the world as long as you have high speed internet connection. When you register your Magicjack, they assign a US phone number to your device. While you are in the DR and you are connected to the internet, people in the USA can call that number and it will ring on your computer. This call will cost you and your friends or business associates nothing.

    I now use Magicjack on my desktop in my home in Santo Domingo. I have a cordless phone, with a built in answering machine, connected to the device. It works great for me.

  8. The Following User Says Thank You to Vincent Vega For This Useful Post:


  9. #26
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Queens, NY
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,121
    Thanks
    1,369
    Thanked 752 Times in 397 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Quote Originally Posted by wmarks345 View Post
    There is another option. If you are staying in a hotel that has high speed internet and you have a laptop or they have computers available for your use, you can go to Magicjack.com and purchase their product for $40.00. That breaks down this way. It is a one time $20.00 charge for the device and $20.00 a year for the service.

    You plug the Magicjack into a USB port and then connect a regular house phone to the Magicjack. You can then call any phone in the USA for free no matter where you are in the world as long as you have high speed internet connection. When you register your Magicjack, they assign a US phone number to your device. While you are in the DR and you are connected to the internet, people in the USA can call that number and it will ring on your computer. This call will cost you and your friends or business associates nothing.

    I now use Magicjack on my desktop in my home in Santo Domingo. I have a cordless phone, with a built in answering machine, connected to the device. It works great for me.
    I was thinking of getting "MagicJack" but there are alot of bad reviews about them.
    Searching for the ultimate Squirter!

  10. #27
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Montreal
    Age
    53
    Posts
    368
    Thanks
    15
    Thanked 70 Times in 18 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    I have heard those remarks about the Magicjack as well. However, mine works great in Santo Domingo. One other thing you can do is to use Skype. Your version of Skype must be registered in the USA for this to work. With your registred version of skype connected to the internet you can call back to the USA for about 2 cents a minute. The reason this works is Skype doesn't know it is out of the country. And you can still call 800 numbers for free. Skype now offers a unlimited USA/Canada plan for about $3 dollars a month. I am sure this will work for calling home from the DR as well. They also offer an unlimited world plan to call 36 differents countries. Unfortunately, the DR isn't one of them.

    Hey Kevy, you are correct. I went back and looked at a couple of phones I was interested in and they are tri bands with out 1900. Thanks for the correction.

  11. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Vincent Vega For This Useful Post:


  12. #28
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Tristate Area
    Age
    52
    Posts
    7,958
    Thanks
    20,425
    Thanked 10,446 Times in 4,196 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    GSM cellular service seems to be the most popular these days.

    Sucks Verizon doesnt use it in the states! I'm sick of these CDMA phones but the service in my area is by far the best using Verizon.
    Jimmy owes me a dollar!

  13. The Following User Says Thank You to Beads For This Useful Post:


  14. #29
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Holland
    Age
    54
    Posts
    1,615
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked 867 Times in 316 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    Quad band phones will work anywhere as long as they are unlocked and are gsm. Just pop in the local sim chip and call away. A tri-band phone might not work depending on where you bought it. However I never had a europe based tri-band phone that did not work in RD.
    Dual bands will mostly not work. At least those from europe. Maybe a dual band from the US works? Do the US use the 1900 band?
    El Hijo del Santo, El deseo de las mujeres, La enviada de los hombres, Polvo por el pueblo, Piedras por las ninas, Libertad por los Capos, La esperanza de Sosua, El Sindico de tu vida!!

  15. The Following User Says Thank You to jd_mine For This Useful Post:


  16. #30
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Montreal
    Age
    53
    Posts
    368
    Thanks
    15
    Thanked 70 Times in 18 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    I just learned that Orange in the DR supports 1800 GSM. This is important for dumb asses like me who use Sprint. Sprint (Verizon, Alltel) use CDMA technology. Sprint now offers a Blackberry World Phone (8830?). It works on the CDMA network as usual, but, this phone has an unlocked SIM slot that supports an 1800 GSM SIM card. I assume Orange does this to support their European customers who travel to the DR. Orange is very big in Europe which is mostly 1800 GSM. I then checked Viva and Claro. No 1800. (Sprint has two other phones that also have this feature.)

    For me this is good news. I now will not have to carry around two phones everywhere I go in the DR. I still like Viva as it is so cheap to use. However, now that I have Magic Jack connected to my computer in Santo Domingo, I very rarely use my Viva phone to call the states.

    I can now get all my calls originated to my number in the states and calls made to my DR number in one phone. If you use AT+T or T-Mobile you can get the dual SIM card phones and accomplish the same thing.

  17. The Following User Says Thank You to Vincent Vega For This Useful Post:


  18. #31
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    harlem world
    Age
    59
    Posts
    1,012
    Thanks
    2,666
    Thanked 2,086 Times in 688 Posts

    Re: Viva SIM cards

    I guess some people wanna see what a dual phone looks like I know I did for 60 buck's you can get this one off of e-bay......






  19. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Tony Badabing For This Useful Post:


Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •