Daughter leaves for Ecuador 5-27-07

[stevenjeff]

Ok this is it everybody- She leaves on a flight out of Cleveland (12 noon) - Chicago then Chicago to Quito Ecuador. Arrival time is 10pm EST to Quito. She will be picked up at the airport by school personnel.

I bought her a 09 internation sim and have been using it in the states. Works great. Phone is a Motorola C139 unlocked.

She has a T-Mobile sim in it now that will work in the US Only . She has been told to take that out once she is inflight to Ecuador.

When she lands I will know by going online direct to Quito Airport for arrival status.

The 09 card info on the PrePaid site is not up to date: Rates are .60 euro for out calls and .49 for sms. all incoming are free both voice and sms.

I told here to buy a local sim as soon as she leaves Customs. Just buy a 10.00 one then something more once she is with her host family.

I plan on calling her using 09 once she lands.
I also explain the call back feature to her to contact friends if she wanted to
not sure on how it will work.
Call back is with the service of: UWT ( United World Telecom) rate .5usd permin.

I am going to keep you all up to date on a day by day log. Not sure on the blog thing. I will be giving you all info on the 09 card and local card, and call back, cost of calls, etc , and my concerns with family members out of the country.

Thank you alll: Steve Jefferies.

[stevenjeff]

Daughter is in the air arrival time is 9pm EST. She has called from the plane in prior to take off. Lots of Hispanics onboard. Widebody plane and she has a window seat (By the Door). She has met somebody onboard and they told her not to buy a sim in the airport. That it will be marked up and it will cost around 30.00 for a local sim prepaid that should only cost 10.00usd. He told her to wait until she was in town to buy a sim.

We will see what happens on arrival.

Will it be: 09 card, or calling card, or local sim that I get my first call from Ecuador?

[stevenjeff]

1122 hrs: Arrived in Ecuador and I received a call from my daughter from an internet cafe: 09 card did not work - she could not get the calling card to work , but did use a internet cafe to call home: I gave her the motorola c139 unlocked 850 frq. did not work.
advised her to buy a local phone package there. and I will mail her out the motorola slv 6 that I have.

Why wouldn't the motorola c139 work, it is on 850 freq that is what the cellular companies have there.
Do you think the quad SLV6 will work? both phones are unlocked.
Cost to ship is going to be from 15.00 to 32.00 from the state of Ohio on Tuesday.

Need some feedback on this? thanks

[Bossman]

It may not be the phone that's the problem but the 09 sim (very likely) itself. Ask her to try a local sim in the phone first before sending her the L6.

[DRNewcomb]

"Did not work" really doesn't give us much to go on. The first question is, did the 09 SIM register on the net in Ecuador? If she does a manual search can she see the Ecuadorian netwoks listed? How long did she leave it on trying to register? Can you call her but she can't call out or vice versa?

[DRNewcomb]

Steven,
Today's a new day. Any news?

I'd also like to point out that with some callback systems in some countries I've tried to make a call, given up, put the phone in my pocket and a minute later the ring-back comes. When calling to some out-of-the-way places the callback may take more time than advertised.

[stevenjeff]

On the first day there she made contact with us by an Internet Cafe inside the airport. She did not know how to use her calling card. This was very scary for my wife and I. We did not speak to her again until the next morning when we call the Host Family where she is staying.
I told her buy a local sim which she did - and guess what it worked. She paid 5 usd for the sim with only 3 min.

The 09 card does not work or she does not know how to manually check for networks. So I will send her the SLV-6 that I have. Once she meets people there the 09 sim might not be the best way to go.
Anyway I will send it cost is 30usd to send a 2lbs package to Ecuador from Ohio. We also talk by email. Here is a copy of the first email she sent us.:

hi,
I am at school right now.
I am fine....quit calling the house!
I will look for a sim card as soon as I can.
I cannot sent pictures because I forgot that I dont have text messaging and i dont have my USB cord for my camera, but you can send that to me later.

The city is so nice. the school is about a 7 minute walk. You can see the city as you walk to school. the city goes up the mountain...you just have to see it.

The house that I am staying at is very very colorful! each wall is a different color...and it is spotless!!!
all of the food is home made. even the juice. this morning we had fruta(fruit), pan y mantaquilla(bread and butter), y jugo de pina (pineapple juice)
she made the juice herself.

My room mate is very nice. She just came from the USA. she does this program called muilti language year through her school in germany. for all of this year she goes to 3 places around the world to learn three different languages. She spent 6.5 months and santa monica, california. and now she is in quito for 10 weeks.

NO ONE KNOWS ENGLISH!!!
only some of the people at the school do.
but it is easy to understand the spanish.

The weather is ok. about 60 right now. I have on jeans and a t-shirt but i put on a sweater for the walk to school this morning.

The lady hosting us is very nice. she is teaching us different vocabulary for the dinner table and proper edicit (sp?). She is very religious. everytime we passed by a church, she did that catholic cross thing that they do....but she is nice

she gave us both keys...one for the street door and one for the house.

all of the houses are gated up and you have to have a key to get in, or be buzzed in...like an apartment....and then once you get in you have to walk up to the house and use the key to open the house door.... you can see the entire city from the front window.

the airport must be really close because the planes fly so low like they are going to land on you.

the cars here drive so fast!!!!
there is no speed limit.
they just fly down the street so fast you barely see them.

there are some palm trees here.

the city is not like any in the USA!!
the buildings and houses are not nearly as nice on the outside...but once you get inside they are really nice. some of the buildings look like tin cans!

and the churches and buildings just leave their doors open and dont have glass on the windows.

have to go!

[stevenjeff]

0830 hrs:/May 29, sent her the quad band Motorola today. This might make a difference with the 09 card that is suppose to work in Ecuador. She should get it within 5 to 8 days. The C 139 does work with the local sim. The only thing was she only purchased a 5 sim card with 3 min. I told her to buy a 20.card and use it, but call and give us the phone number.
We make contact with her using VOIP, but I have since added World Service to our home telephone and cost is only .32 cent per minute.

Q: The networks in Ecuador run on 850 frq network only: on 09 website they state a quad band phone is needed in South America. Is it possible that 09 is running on 900/1800 in Ecuador when their networks are only 850 therefore making the Motorola C139 unusable?

I might be wasting money sending her the SLV 6 phone and messing with the 09 card, but it’s a learning experiment for us all. If anyone can help or have an extra card that might work let me know.

I checked and UWS callback service is up and working. But this service will do no good until I get a Sim working were she can test it.

Thanks.

[Bossman]

I am assuming you tested the 09 card in the C139 phone here first and you received the callback right. If so, then I doubt the L6 will make any difference in being able to use the 09 card. I think the card just does not work there period.

Some phones just do not work with those sims that use call back or out going calls have to be dialed through the sims menu. For example, my globalsim does not work for outgoing calls in my SLVR L7, but works in my other Nokia 3120 and Moto V551 which are older.

[prion]

Stevenjeff it is important to ask her and tell us if the sim registers in any network there. If it is registering then you should try to contact her afterwards. If you can not manage then probably she should try anoter network (mannually). If this does not work then probably the card will not work there.