My daughter got a wonderful opportunity to represent her sport/school in Puerto Rico over Spring Break. Of course she is like any other 19 year old and will likely use her phone for texting and sending pictures to people in the US without even thinking about it. I know it is a territory but don’t know if there are exceptions. We have 5 lines with shared data etc. through Verizon. I pulled up their website and couldn’t quite tell if it is covered or if I need to buy a $3.99 international dialing plan.
Can someone a little more in tune with things let this old fart know if I need to set something up in advance or if it is ok for her to send things. I assume that at least part of the time she will have Wi-Fi access as well.
Was just in PR over Thanksgiving. My wifes U.S. Cellular phone hit her for $1.99 per minute regardless of what she was doing (calls, text, WI-FI, sending pictures, etc.)
Meanwhile my Straight Talk phone from evil Walmart had full service and full bars everywhere on the island. I made calls to back in Milwaukee, sent text and pictures, and had internet access.
And it didn’t cost a thing more than the $30 a month I already pay for it.
My advice is to get her one of these phones and let her use it down there. Theres no contract so it’s no big deal to just toss it when she gets back. I’m willing to bet shes going to run up far more than $60 ($30 for a month of Straight talk + $30 for a cheap S.T. phone) on your current plan.
I’d say consult some living being at Verizon as to whether the plan you have covers PR (both voice AND data, remember), as many of Verizon’s plans do. Verizon sold its own Puerto Rico operation (acquired when they merged GTE) to AmericaMovil, the Carlos Slim telecomms empire (brand name CLARO) some years ago, but part of the deal was to continue hosting Verizon USA customers on the network.
However, as **bizerta **points out, in some locations in PR you may go into “roaming” mode outside the CLARO network and those you’d have to look out for.