Calling a cell phone in Mexico

May 14, 2009 5:00 PM

Calling from a landline in the US to a Mexican cell phone number (Veracruz state): Possible without selling your immortal soul?

Phonecards are very cost effective when calling a Mexican landline from a US landline. They chew up the minutes though when you’re calling a Mexican cell number.

Anyone in the hive know of a way to call a Mexican cell number in Veracruz from a US landline without breaking the bank?

VOIP is out since the person I will be calling has no laptop, and Google has helped me nary at all.

Thanks for any/all suggestions.

posted by subajestad to grab bag (5 comments total)

First it would help if you would define "breaking the bank". Is 20 cents/min too much? 10 cents? 5 cents?
posted by bengarland at 5:18 PM on May 14

Skype out. I regularly call people in different countries, often on their cellphones. The rates are really cheap compared to the TelCos ... I pay using Paypal, which means I can just post $15 to my Skype account and use it until it is all gone. Great deal - the only way that the person on the other end knows that you are using Skype is that you occasionally get a brief dropout (and I swear that's my ISP trying to "encourage" me to take their VOIP service). But it is always back within a second, so there's no real hassle.
posted by Susurration at 5:31 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

Bengarland: 10 cents or less would be ideal.

Susurration: Thanks for the suggestion; hadn't even occurred to me.
posted by subajestad at 5:49 PM on May 14

It looks like the rate for Skype Out is still 20c per minute even if you have a subscription, based on this link. Skype is even more expensive when I have to call Spanish cell phones, so I guess I'm not that surprised.

This may not be useful, but I guess I'll mention it anyways just in case... If you are talking for more than a couple hundred minutes a month, one idea that you can look into is buying a virtual phone number in Mexico and then having it forwarded to your US phone. For example, you could get a Skype Online Number in Mexico which would be a real phone number in Mexico that you can forward to either your Skype account or a phone number. With a basic subscription like the one above, it costs $30 per year to add an Online Number that lets you forward your Online Number (in Mexico) to your US cell phone for free. This way your friend could call you as if you were local to them and it only costs them the minutes/money on their cell phone. The cities that Skype offers virtual numbers right now are Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey. So the cost would be $30/year (one time Online Number fee) + ~$6/month (Skype subscription fee) + whatever fees your friend paid to call one of those Mexican cities. I guess this plan is only effective if your friend can call those cities cheaply and if you guys talk for more than a couple hundred minutes a month.

Vonage offers virtual numbers too, but I think it would cost a lot more.
posted by some idealist at 7:03 PM on May 14

I used calling cards (which you can order online and receive via email) from this company when I was in Costa Rica. I bought one for my then-girlfriend in the USA to use to call me. The rates were the cheapest I could find. Just note that they offer different restrictions on each type of card. Some are good if you want to talk for just a few minutes at a time, others are better if you are going to have mostly long conversations (due to minute rounding on the cheaper cards).

Their advertised rate for US -> Mexico Mobile is 20 cents/min
posted by bengarland at 8:44 PM on May 14