I have international roaming on my cell phone, as we travel pretty extensively. However, the last time we were on Bonaire our phones would not work. They just kept searching. Up here in Philadelphia, our service is Voice Stream. I called them today, and found out that all of the Neatherland Antilles are on a "block" with Voice Stream. I asked her if she could tell me why, and she responded that it could be for many reasons. Anyway, does anyone know of a good cell phone service on Bonaire for the 10 days we will be there? Kathi and I just like to have them as sometimes we do different things, while traveling. Although all my children are in their 20's, I like them to have access to me as well. Thanks for any comments or suggestions ahead of time.

Cellular One in town is very good, we have used them our last two trips. You buy pre paid calling cards that you load into the phone.

Thank you Alan and Joan. I'll check them out next week. Are they located on the main street, I mean Playa, in town?

Yes they are.

See: http://www.infobonaire.com/telephone.html

for contact info.

Jake

Jake, you are the man!!! Again, thanks.

My friend purchased the prepaid cellphone in town. Something like .51 per minute.

I have service with Verizon and it picked up a cell site. They have now installed payphones all over the island that worked well with a credit card.

Nice topic, btw, does anyone know what type of cellular network they offer in Bon? is it 900, 1800 or 1900 Mhz???
Everybody should check their cellphones just what type of network is supported, only then you are able to use Bon prepaid cards. Most GSM's sold in europe are only capable of using 1 or 2 frequency bands...
Using your own SIM card is only possible if your provider has a roaming deal with the one in Bon. (most providers have info on their website about roaming)
Tot in de winter dan zijn we weer in bonaire!

Henk,

GSM is not presently supported on Bonaire. Only TDMA phones are usable at the moment (GSM is coming, though).

Jake

Richard,
I've heard that those payphones that are all over town now are extremely expensive--is it true (did you get your credit card bill yet?)? I used a similar one once in Mexico and was charged over $40 for a 3 minute call to the US! I was wary when I saw these being installed all over.

Another option is that you can still buy Telbo (our local phone co.) phonecards at many stores and use them in the Telbo phone booths (they're real phone booths). Also, don't forget, that here, we don't get charged for receiving calls on our cellulars, only for making outgoing ones-so perhaps renting one is the best way to go.

Renting a cell phone and buying the pre-paid cards is probably your best bet. CArole

I asked Cellular One for their rates and here is the reply I received:

The rental prices for a cell phone with a deposit of $175.00 is as follows:
1. Renter pays $57.14 on airtime plus $2.84 daily rental or pays $100.00 on airtime and no daily
rental up to 14 days.
2. Renter pays $85.71 on airtime plus the daily rental or pays $142.86 on airtime and no daily
rental up to 30 days.

International calling is possible to all destinations.
The rate per minute to call to the USA is $0.51 and local call is $0.66 per minute.

I write a website about how to get the cheapest phone and internet service on different islands.

Is cellular one the only service?

GSMWORLD.COM is not me but has great GSM roaming contact information. Unfortunately nothing on Bonaire yet! Please inform them if you know of any.

Any GSM phone should be have the "system lock" turned off before even thinking about going to another country to get service locally. This is a software feature in the phone to protect the profits of the company you use now. Most, I think, will tell you how once you have been a customer for a while. This prevents other sim chips from working!

You don't want to roam in a country since it's probably cheaper to get prepaid minutes from a local company. Don't fall for the line "you phone will work there now we have a roaming agreement".

Does Cellular one have a website yet?

Any idea which band they use 800, 900, 1800, 1900?

Steve

There is no roaming GSM available on Bonaire at this time. There are plans for this later in the year.

Part of the issue with roaming (or not roaming as the case actually is) here is that the Cellular networks on Bonaire and Curacao (which does have GSM - not sure what band they are on) is that it's a caller pays system. There is no charge to cell phone users receiving a call, for example, while local callers to cell phone numbers pay a surcharge for such calls. Cell phone callers pay to call out only, usually on a prepay program ("charging the phone").

No Web site for Cell One or TelboCel yet (both of whom run TDMA systems). The GSM system planned for Bonaire is vapor right now...

For Internet Access Providers, see InfoBonaire's technology section.

Jake

I found out I was paying 1,15 NAF per minute..no wonder I spent 1,000.00 naf on calling cards..

For the future WHO has the best rental plan or should I buy a phone and get a perm number and with WHOM?

Annie suffering the first day of PBD..can u believe how fast 7 weeks went?? SNIFF

Hi Annie,
We bought a phone from Cellular One a couple of years ago and were given a permanent number. I would think this would make sense for you also.

Nathalie

Or better yet - get a hand me down TDMA phone in the states and then go to CellOne or TelboCel and get it activated with them as a local phone. (Annie told me she was told she was getting the "rental phone" rate - eek!)

Jake

Nathalie, I too was given a phone and perm number but the air rates were 1,15!



I am looking for the cheapest way to have a phone!

Where can I secure a used TDMA phone?

Also, does Telbo have a web site yet?

Annie

Annie, it's www.telbo.an

However Telbo does not have any info re cell phones on their site. Also, it still is a work in progress, ie updated language, etc.

And it's definitely lacking in other useful information (seems to also take forever to load!). If they had only used a Bonaire-based company (of which there are several other than others) to design their site instead of a Curacao company I'm sure their site would have been better (and no doubt more complete)

Jake

PS After Telbo reads the above message I may find my phone service has mysteriously stopped functioning ;-)

LOL... Well Jake, it seems to work fast enough from this end .
But I don't think you need to worry... Telbo don't even seem to read mails, let alone read websites...

Jake, is this a commercial activity??? LOL

Martin,

ROFL! I was thinking the same thing :-D

But then, 'sluikreclame' is allowed on the other side of the globe (e.g. USA)... And even if that wouldn't apply to Bonaire, it's not like the Webmaster of BonaireTalk would discard Jake's message because of it's commercial nature....

Kitty, I think you're right, and who can blame him??

Oh, absolutely nobody. Without Jake our lives would be(come) a wee bit dull, don't you think? I mean, he has created all these fab websites that we are checking out every day from a place that's 10000 km away and cold and crowded and grey and... well, need I say more?

Don't say a word more, I think that you, when you look outside see a lot of nothing, now that the sun set early here...

But only 6 weeks and 2.25 hours and our plane takes off... But, who's counting...

Think again! I see lights and people and it's dark alright but all those lights make the cold, grey, crowd palpable and visible.
That's what you get when you live in the centre of Holland's biggest city....

Whit all the light inside and the curtains closed I see nothing, just dreaming of Bonaire... And I think we live in the same city, or are you not in the same city as Marc??

Actually, I thought I wrote:

"there are several others other than just OURS" - it just didn't come out that. So it was a commercial note to chastise Telbo, a Bonairean company for not using a Bonairean company to design their site (Telbo has its own Web server so they wouldn't need hosting from us).

We do very little commercial Web design for other companies ourselves these days - we do mostly hosting and working with local Web designers (and Web design for our own sites).

So it wasn't a note to self promote. Nice attempt to catch me at it though :-)

Jake

Martin,

Yes, we are in the same city, though 'officially' I should be at the other end of the country.... :-/

And Jake, it was nice to tickle you out of your kokolishi... ;-)

Martin, when Kitty said "Holland's biggest city", she just meant that we don't see Amsterdam as a city, but as a rather large village ;-)

Nathalie-
How much did you pay for your phone? What are you charged monthly? Do you find it is worth it, financially, to have bought the phone and the permanent number? I'm thinking of doing it too, but for now I'm only on Bonaire 1 1/2 months a year....as I say, "for now"! Thanks.

Kate,
I apologize for not answering sooner. We bought the phone 2 or 3yrs. ago from CellOne for about 100NAFL, there is no monthly fee, we pay only for the calls we make. For us, the local rate (don't know what it is) is not a major concern. We got the phone so my husband could receive business calls from the U.S. and for these there is no charge to us. We are on Bonaire for 3weeks yearly and this arrangement fits our needs quite well.

In a previous year we had our cell phone from the states programmed to work locally, but our vacation was almost over by the time the phone was functional. Perhaps the turn around time has improved since then.