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Cellular Phones/texting in Bahamas

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Expert: - 2/14/2010


Question
My daughter will be on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas and wants to be able to text her friends. Her phone has the unlimited text plan but am unsure of roaming charges and even phone compatibility. She has a new iPod Touch and a Samsung cell phone. The plan is with US Cellular, which does have a roaming agreement with the phone company in the Bahamas. What's the cheapest way to go....beside telling her to leave the phones at home.

Answer
An unlimited text messaging package is only for areas where you are on the US Cellular network. Since your daughter will not be on their network in the Bahamas, she would be billed per text message sent and/or received at the roaming rates. I would strongly recommend that she leave her phone at home or not use it while on her cruise and you can prevent that by not having roaming enabled on her phone. Then she won't be able to use it. Keep in mind that on cruises, when you use your phone, you are often using the cruise ships network and your calls will be billed at even higher rates than standard roaming rates. Have her use her Touch on WiFi to send emails whenever she has WiFi ability on her trip and forget about text messaging for the time being. I hope this helps. Thanks. DebiN

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DebiN

Expertise

I can answer questions on cellular phones, the physical device, the network, contracts, billing, ordering, porting and what to look for when purchasing cell phones. I am located in the United States. I am an expert on BlackBerrys, Treos, HTC devices and iPhones as well as cellphones and aircards. I have over 15 years of experience in both the wireless and wireline world with the carriers. I have a lot of knowledge regarding the wireless providers - their services, prices and policies, both GSM AT&T and T-Mobile) and CDMA (Verizon, Sprint/Nextel). I am very familiar with the individual devices and their specifications. I can also answer questions regarding BlackBerrys, iPhones and other PDAs, both Palm-based and Windows-based. I can troubleshoot most any problem someone is having with their cellular device or with the provider.

Experience

Over 20 years in the Telecom industry working for the carriers with individuals, small business, medium business and large corporations(Fortune 500). Also worked as a professor in Maryland for 10 years teaching telecommunications.

Organizations
I belong to several organizations

Education/Credentials
Master's in Telecommunications

Awards and Honors
Received several awards for papers that I have published over the years

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