Cellphones
You’re dealing with geeks here (Willow has already been “certified” by her classmates at Berkeley as the techie in her crowd) so we wanted to give you options regarding cellphone service in Spain.
Non-GSM providers (Verizon) will not work here, so don’t even bring the phone just to try. If you are a T-Mobile or AT&T subscriber plus your cellphone is a “world phone” (can use the 900 and/or 1800 Mhz frequency bands) you will be able to get service while here in Spain.
At outrageous prices, mostly.
That means $1.29 or $0.99 per minute on AT&T and $0.99 on T-Mobile. SMS is also expensive from here at $0.50 a pop.
However, this might sound reasonable when calling back home as you will be charged about the same with a local pre-paid cellphone bought here when dialing the US. If you only plan on calling back to the US and won’t be making local calls, your AT&T or T-Mobile phone might be a good option. Make sure to call ahead in order to activate the roaming plan.
Emergency is 112 on cellphones, and that will work even without a roaming agreement.
If you want to go out of your way and get a calling card, those prices will be much cheaper as you pay just to dial a local Spain access number and then a much reduced rate to call the US. Good information seems to be found here.
We plan on providing a few of Willow’s family members with pre-paid Spain cellphones and can extend the offer to others if you are interested. We’ll try to find you a phone that works here and buy a 24 Euros prepaid card and get it on a rate plan that allows calls to all other wedding cellphones (up to 10) for a very discounted rate. These will also be twitter enabled! 🙂
Keep in mind that all incoming calls are free for cellphones in Spain (local companies only, of course … not AT&T or T-Mobile), so you will be reachable even if you have run out of credit on your local prepaid card.
Let us know if you would want to get a cellphone as described for your stay here.