TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Cell service

I use ATT at home what would be the best service to use in SXM not that I will be using the phone that much

I use AT&T also. I turned on "International Day Pass" which gives you voice, text, and data for $10/day. If you don't use voice, text, or data on a day you don't get charged. So I turned off cellular data on my phone (so it wasn't downloading all the time) and used wifi.

I have AT&T. In the past I added a 30 day international passport that has reduced rates on calling and unlimited text and about a gig of data. It used to be cheap...roughly about $30 for a month coverage.

Now its what I consider pricey for what you get $60 per month. That said, I turn my data off and have the phone handy for emergencies.

For calling, I just fall back to, wifi calling -or- google voice, Skype, or what's app. Put simply I never use my phone much while there and when I do I just use the wifi/internet options available to me. That said we only stay for 2 week cracks at most. So if you stay longer...you may consider the pass.

We do exactly the same, but with our Verizon phones. Good to have and no charge if you don't use it.

I have Verizon and I added that plan too. After I met with Lesley to get my rental car I had to contact the owner of the condo so that he could meet us there. The service worked great and it is valid for 24 hours from the time you first use it. I think my wife inadvertently responded to a facebook message and it started a second day. From that point we just left the phone in airport mode and if we needed to call someone we would just take it out of airplane mode. Luckily we didn't have to use it and just used the wi-fi. I didn't try to use the phone via the wi-fi connection but I read on a different post that you can. Actually we really just wanted to be unplugged.

International plan is great if you need it ....if you just want to call home or receive calls from home then wifi calling works fine. No cost...discussed in previous posts. It DOES work....used it multiple times from France at zero cost AND you receive any calls from the USA without ANY issues (or cost)

Verizon Travel Pass (International Plan) works if needed as a standby BUT if you just want to make calls home OR receive calls from home then wifi calling should be your choice

Is it better to turn off Cellular Data or put in Airplane Mode??

We plan on using AT&T International also, but mostly with WIFI.
Someone mentioned getting charged for responding to Facebook message---you need WIFI to get Facebook, so how would that be a problem??

"you need WIFI to get Facebook,"
You can get Facebook with your data if your not on airplane mode. Best to keep on airplane mode at all times and only switch off if you need to.

Airplane mode on with wifi....no charge for any email messages back and forth

Airplane mode on with wifi and wifi calling enabled...same as above but calls/texts sent to USA AND RECEIVED from USA are not charged.. Obviously emails work to anywhere. Calls to a different country than the USA are charged a nominal rate.

When I was in Aruba a couple of months ago (airplane mode ALWAYS on) I made a test call to our car rental agency to confirm an earlier departure time...maybe a 4-5 minute call. My phone warned me that there would be charges...I was billed right around $2.50 for that call ($1.99 + tax) and zero for the other calls to and from the USA. I could have used the International Plan to make the call but it would have cost $10 for the day. I did not need it for the rest of the day since the wifi worked fine all week

Use whatever you feel comfortable with....

Have who ever you plan on calling put WhatsApp on their phone. Free calls and texts anywhere in the world with WiFi. Video calls to.

So you are saying, that if I make a call, using WIFI, to a restaurant in SXM


So you are saying, that if I make a call, using WIFI, to a restaurant in SXM with my AT&T phone, that I will be charged?

I always used Airplane Mode when using my phone with a SIM of the country, so there was no problem at all. This is new to me.
WIFI for things like Facebook.

My son used shutting off Cellular Data and used WIFI calling from Aruba for texts daily to USA with no problem.

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So you are saying, that if I make a call, using WIFI, to a restaurant in SXM with my AT&T phone, that I will be charged?..........YES, WITH WIFI CALLING

I always used Airplane Mode when using my phone with a SIM of the country, so there was no problem at all. This is new to me.
WIFI for things like Facebook. .....KEY DIFFERENCE IS USE OF A SIM CARD WHICH I DO NOT THINK IS FREE...MAYBE, BUT I HAVE NEVER NEEDED ONE

My son used shutting off Cellular Data and used WIFI calling from Aruba for texts daily to USA with no problem. >>>CORRECT>>>NO PROBLEM.... WOULD HAVE WORKED THE SAME IN AIRPLANE MODE ON WIFI AND HE COULD HAVE CALLED HOME WITH NO CHARGES
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Thank-you!

Appreciate your time.