Service in Central Mexico: San Miguel de Allende

[mark]

As I read yesterday (with sadness) about the (apparently) upcoming T-Mobile purchase of Sprint, I'm reminded how much I've enjoyed this site...and how useful it has been to me and my family...two decade Sprint customers.

Between Feb 15 and Feb 22...my wife and I will be in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Am I understanding things right...

For two dollars a day, I can use my Sprint iPhone 6s while in Mexico?!

In San Miguel de Allende, what kind of service can we expect? Great. Middling. Poor?

Anything I should know?

Thanks for reading.

[Thomas L.]

On 2/12/2020 at 1:47 PM, mark said:

As I read yesterday (with sadness) about the (apparently) upcoming T-Mobile purchase of Sprint, I'm reminded how much I've enjoyed this site...and how useful it has been to me and my family...two decade Sprint customers.

Between Feb 15 and Feb 22...my wife and I will be in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Am I understanding things right...

For two dollars a day, I can use my Sprint iPhone 6s while in Mexico?!

In San Miguel de Allende, what kind of service can we expect? Great. Middling. Poor?

Anything I should know?

Thanks for reading.

I looked up coverage in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato - you should have decent coverage there, if not LTE, at least HSPA+, which is plenty fast. 

 

Have fun!

[greenbastard]

On 2/12/2020 at 3:47 PM, mark said:

As I read yesterday (with sadness) about the (apparently) upcoming T-Mobile purchase of Sprint, I'm reminded how much I've enjoyed this site...and how useful it has been to me and my family...two decade Sprint customers.

Between Feb 15 and Feb 22...my wife and I will be in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Am I understanding things right...

For two dollars a day, I can use my Sprint iPhone 6s while in Mexico?!

In San Miguel de Allende, what kind of service can we expect? Great. Middling. Poor?

Anything I should know?

Thanks for reading.

I've been to the state of Guanajuato several times. I realize this post is late, but IMO Telcel is #1, At&t is #2, and then Movistar is moon-moon. Telcel has the best coverage in the region and the least amount of congestion. At&t took a poor Iusacell network and expanded rapidly, making them 2nd best. Movistar is piss poor and definitely awful. I don't think they even have LTE in San Miguel yet (or at least I couldn't roam on it last time I was there...only HSPA).

Anyways, how was your experience? Cellphone connectivity is very important now that crime has exploded. There's been carjackings and kidnappings in broad daylight in San Miguel de Allende. Last time I went down there, a severed head was left in a cooler along with a public message under a bridge. I definitely don't recommend anyone go to Guanajuato for leisure at this time. Just 30 miles south of San Miguel is the wild west of Mexican Cartels.

[mark]

On our iPhones, Sprint's free roaming in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) is with Movistar. You're right...Movistar is only so-so...with no LTE but lots of 3G (kind of fast) that usually worked...but had a bunch of dead spots in the SMA Central City area.

But overall, the Movistar coverage was good enough for Google Maps and texting.

I did not see any evidence of severed heads, severed heads in coolers, or anything obvious related to the cartels.

But my wife and I generally headed back to our rental apartment at or before dusk...and because of that we did not experience anything that I would refer to as scary.

There is no doubt, though, that there's a lot of smoke, in terms of what you're describing. Thankfully we saw no fire.