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Telephone Services In the past year, the cellular telephone companies have added an additional digit in front of all their phone numbers to act as an area code. This means that all numbers starting with 3 now have an extra 3, and all numbers starting with 8 and 9 now have an extra 9. There are also rumors that an eight digit is going to be added in front of all the landline numbers around december. Please see the News section for the latest information. Telephone services are not entirely relaible and work only most of the time. There are periods with no service, dropped calls, messages not delivered, and so on. Some numbers cannot call certain other numbers. It is a good idea to have some kind of back-up system such as Skype, especially if you are doing business (or trying to!). Cellular Telephone Service There are two companies offering cell phone service: Claro/ALO and TIGO. It is easy to buy an inexpensive cell phone and use prepaid phone cards. Amazingly, it is less expensive to call Canada and the United States than to call locally. It should be noted that you sometimes have to try several times before getting through. You will often get a message that says that “you cannot make the call from this phone” but that doesn’t mean anything. If it doesn’t work on the first try, try it a couple of more times and it will go through. To call Canada and the United States, dial 001 + area code + phone number. To call other countries, dial 00+country code. For country codes, please see the International Calls section on page 22. Landlines Landlines are available through Hondutel, a government-owned company and Telefhon. They are quite expensive and there is a long waiting list for installation. It appears that the infrastructure is insufficient for the demand in certain areas and there is currently no work in progress to increase the capacity of the network. The network is not currently expanding in spite of all the new residential developments and new businesses on the island. In some areas, new clients have to wait for existing clients to abandon their service in order to receive theirs. Long-distance calls on landlines are costly and fraud is rampant. Several clients have seen their service cut off suddenly. They were told that their bill was not paid on time but in some cases they had not received any bill. Bill distribution is not easy with no mail service! Internet providers can install a DSL service independently of landlines, using their own cable network. Internet services are available in several forms:
Hondutel offers the landline connections. The service is rather slow and goes out during power failures, but it may be sufficient if used primarily for emails. You can get an Internet connection without having a landline. This is achieved with DSL or Satellite-based services. Satellite-Based Satellite-based service requires the purchase of a satellite dish. Be prepared to spend a minimum of $1700 (HughesNet, installation and tax included) or $3,700 (VSat) for the dish. Monthly rates start at around $100 and can go up substantially if you increase your connection speed. Some satellite services have monthly quotas (VSat) and others do not (HughesNet). The advantage of satellite-based service is a connection that beams directly to the satellite and then to the United States. Provided that you have a generator, power failures will not affect your connection. The downside is that your connection can be affected by bad weather. Some satellite service are a lot more reliable than others. Check providers carefully. DSL/Cable-Based The DSL/cable-based service has recently become available by Navega a company afilliated to metrored of Central America. The residential service is rather costly but very stable and the service is fast. This type of service uses physical cables and radio antennas. Navega has generators so the service is not lost during power failure if yu have some kind of back-up system for your computer. There are 2 major cable TV companies on the island and each has its territory, although they are planning to expand their current network. |
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