On a recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, me and fellow travellers wanted to stay connected without paying huge money for roaming or shoddy hotel wifi. So I looked into getting a Mexican SIM card for my iPhone. Its not quite as easy as prepaid in the US or Europe, but the good news is that if you want to get online while visiting Mexico it is relatively simple and inexpensive.

Actual calling tariffs in Mexico are very confusing. They’re based on regions and, depending on where you call within Mexico, your calls could be very cheap or very expensive (like long distance in Canada). You’re also charged extra if you travel outside of your very small home region. So I decided to skip native calling and texting altogether, and opt for data-only instead. VOIP, email and app based texting.

There are a number of cellphone companies in Mexico. Telcel, Movistar, Isuacell, Nextel among others, but Telcel and Movistar have the most widespread 3G networks that are compatible with iPhones and other unlocked GSM devices. And between those Telcel is said to have to greater coverage at somewhat higher cost.

I was ready to try out either Telcel or Movistar, but it turned out that we drove past a Telcel shop first. It was right on the big highway in Bucerias (Nuevo Vallarta area). There are plenty of these little stores and you shouldn’t have trouble finding one. We went inside and I explained what I wanted to do. There was a language barrier, but in my case a salesperson’s friend was visiting and he spoke perfect English. You might want to write down or save a couple phrases in Google Translate before heading to the shop.

I’ve read online that some have had to go into a big city and have their passport scanned. But in my case they just had me write down the spelling of my name, the hotel I was staying at and we were good to go. Activation was done over the phone.

The SIM card was $149MX (just over $10CAD). There’s plenty of data plans to choose from, but I went with the 1GB/7days for $199MX (about $15CAD). They activated it for me it was working right away. If you need to reload your account to buy more data or check your usage you can do it from the Telcel self-serve website. The site accepts international credit cards.

Coverage was OK. It worked just about everywhere, except inside the lobby of the hotel where there were some dead spots. It was mostly 3G but I saw Edge sometimes too. Speeds aren’t amazing but better than the hotel wifi.

I used the Personal Hotspot feature on my phone, and we had up to 5 devices surfing and emailing harmonioulsy.

It turns out you can! Just update your devices to iOS 4.3 or later, then enable both Personal Hotspot and Bluetooth on your phone. Open up the Bluetooth menu on your iPad and pair with your iPhone. You’re carrier may require a plan add-on to enable tethering. It’ll sync up and show the Personal Hotspot icon at the top of the screen. Congratulations, you’re connected.

The setup was seamless, and certainly easier than others methods I’ve tried. Pages and videos load reasonably fast, and emails come through without delay. And, because this is essentially Bluetooth tethering, it has a relatively low draw on the battery.

What You Need

An unlocked GSM phone. If you’re a Canadian that means any recent unlocked phone from Rogers, Fido, WIND, or Mobilicity. If you are on the new HSPA network, your Telus or Bell phone might also be compatible. For this guide I used an old Rogers Blackberry Bold 9000.

If your phone is not unlocked it can almost certainly be done online for a small fee or at the mall (for a slightly larger fee). Some phones can’t be easily unlocked like the iPhone.

Once You’re in the US

Go to a T-Mobile store and buy a prepaid SIM (~$10). T-Mobile is the 4th largest carrier in the US. Their coverage is plenty good for a short visit like ours and much less expensive than AT&T. The staff are very helpful and they’ll help you with the SIM card if you need, then print out your US phone number.

The SIM is pre-loaded with something like $3 credit, which is good for about 10 minutes of calling ($0.30/min) or a few dozen texts ($0.10 to send and $0.05 to receive). Those rates aren’t unreasonable, but I wanted a little more for my money.

The good news is that T-Mobile also offers an unlimited Daily WebPass (data) for $1.45. Its good for a day and once you have this you check your email, browse the web, and use as much VOIP (Skype, Fring, SIP, Line2) as your heart desires.

Update (Jan 2012): T-Mobile now offers a $2 dollar a day plan that includes unlimited US texts, talk and Edge/2G data.  They also have $3 dollar plan that includes 3G data (if your phone is compatibility with AWS 3G networks, or you’re in an area that T-Mobile has 1900Mhz 3G coverage).

How do I sign up for a Daily WebPass? I was wondering this before I left because T-Mobile nor any other sites seem to have any information. Its actually very easy! In your phone you’ll need to “set the APN” (look up instructions for your model) to epc.tmobile.com with no username or password. On my BlackBerry it was under Advanced Options > TC/IP. Once you do that open up your phone’s web browser (you must use Opera Mini if you have a BlackBerry) and you’ll be greeted with a page that asks you to purchase a WebPass. Just follow the buttons to sign up, the $1.45 will be drawn from your prepaid balance and your data will be activated!

BlackBerry users: Note that you will not have access to BlackBerry branded apps that rely on Blackberry Internet Services (email, BBM, maps, Facebook app etc) [UPDATE: Read next paragraph]. Prepaid BIS is simply not offered in the US by any carrier. You will have to use Opera Mini to browse and a handful of other apps that don’t need BIS. It might be advisable to take along a second phone to use with the prepaid SIM so you can continue to use your BlackBerry services over WiFi. In my case it didn’t matter, because I was using my BlackBerry for Opera Mini and tethering my laptop and iPhone.

Update (Jun 2011): T-Mobile now has prepaid BIS! Its $10 for a month (in addition to a regular data plan, otherwise it only works on Wifi), and enables BlackBerry email, BBM and browsing.

Tethering

The biggest use I got out of the service was tethering my laptop and iPhone to my prepaid US phone. Once you have the WebPass its easy to setup on a Mac. Just enable Bluetooth on your phone and pair with your laptop. Set it up as a modem using the same APN as your phone (epc.tmobile.com with no username or password). I tried generic and Sierra Wireless as the vendors for my BlackBerry and both worked. Select the add Bluetooth DUN to menu bar option. Then you can just open the phone icon at the top of your screen, click “Connect Bluetooth DUN” and your laptop will be connected.

Create a WiFi hospot: If you have multiple devices, or ones that can’t easily bluetooth tether, you might want to create a WiFi hotspot. You can do this by using something like a MiFi device, or a phone that supports a hotspot feature (like Android + Barnacle WiFi tethering). For some useful information see the comment by CB.

For talking and texting I used Toktumi’s excellent Line2 app. I just signed up for a 30-day trial account with a local number in the city I was staying in. It worked very well texts and reasonably well for VOIP over T-Mobile’s EDGE network. Calls and texts came in just like I was using the native app, and for free instead of the ridiculous $1.45+/min or $0.60+/txt that Telus, Rogers and other Canadian carriers charge.

Update (Jan 2012): Other options for making/receiving calls have now opened up. One of the best is Google Voice. It integrates with the Google account you probably already have, and gives you a US number that you can use to receive and make free calls to the US + Canada. An app like Dell Voice (iOS and Android) will give you a free Canadian number that allows calls to and from most Canadian locations using VOIP.

And that’s a wrap. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments. Any money saved from going prepaid in the US is money not encouraging extortionist roaming rates.

I bought the MOTOROKR S305 Bluetooth Headphones a few months ago and I’m loving them. Use these with my iPhone 3Gs at my desk and on my commute. They sound fantastic, the on-ear controls are convenient and [the best part] there are no pesky wires!

Operation

After you pair them with your iPod / iPhone / iPad / BlackBerry / Android / dumbphone operation is dead simple. Pull the headset out of your bag and hold the power button. They’ll connect automatically, and you can start listening to music or making calls.

Comfort / Ergonomics

These are comfortable to wear for a few hours. After several hours of use you might notice some discomfort, especially on the top of yours ears. They are more comfortable than iPod earbuds.

The behind-the-neck setup is generally good. You slip them on from the back (no ruined hairdos) placing them over yours ears. They aren’t too tight, but you won’t have to worry about them falling off either (even while running).

One irritation is that if your resting your head against a pillow or seat back, the band tends to push the headphones up over your ears. The problem is that the designers made the band protrude needlessly far backwards. You can overcome the issue by repositioning the headset but it can definitely be a nuisance.

Sound Quality and Controls

Stereo sound quality may vary on your device. I use an iPhone 3Gs with iOS 4.0, and I find the quality very good. As long as you’re coming from iPod or similar earbuds: I doubt these could compare to sound isolating or in-ear headphones. The bass won’t rattle your brain, but it is reasonably good. I haven’t experienced any skipping/audio issues except when I was more than 25ft away from my phone.

The audio controls work on iOS 4.1 and above, and presumably other phones and media players. The buttons are small, but you’ll figure out where they are quickly. Theres a track forward, track back, play/pause and call button on the face of the right earpiece. On the top there’s two volume and the on/off buttons.

And that’s about it! They’re available for around $40 depending on where you shop, and I would definitely recommend them.

1. Cellular Data switch: This is great news for people outside of the US and UK who have limited data plans. Now if you have no data plan, are reaching your limit, or just don’t want to use any data at a given time you can turn it off independently of 3G/edge voice and SMS.
2. Missing music controls: Double tapping on the home button to bring up Multitasking has come at the cost of the iPod controls (the little blue menu that would appear over whatever app you were working in). I suppose this doesn’t matter when you’re using Apple earphones, but I already miss that feature quite a bit and I hope they can re-implement it.
3. Threaded email doesn’t work (yet): The universal inbox works perfectly, but the actual threading makes strange mistakes. Completely unrelated messages from different people are grouped together, not all conversations are threaded…its a mess. Hopefully Apple can get this figured out by the Summer release date, and I’ve just disabled the threading for now.

Here’s the deal: you can use push email from MobileMe, Yahoo or a Microsoft exchange account. This is kind of limiting, seeing as most of the world doesn’t want to drop $100 on MobileMe (see my older post), doesn’t use Yahoo mail and isn’t a corporate email junkie. The good news is that someone has been thinking about the rest of us and that entity is Google. They are offering a free service called Google Sync, which is essentially a personal Exchange account that you can use with your iPhone and other mobile devices.

I have four email accounts that I want pushed to my iPhone. 1 Gmail, 2 Google Apps, and 1 external account. Since you can only use 1 Exchange account (Google Sync) on your iPhone I had to come up with a crafty solution.

You could forward all mail to one MobileMe / Yahoo / Exchange / Google Sync account. The problem with that setup is that when you reply to emails they will all be sent from your push enabled account, and not necessarily the one they were sent to.

Instead, I setup all of my email accounts using IMAP and set the fetch interval to 1 hour. This way I can open emails on the right account and reply normally. I’m still not getting push, so I also went into the online settings for my email accounts and setup forwarding to a single Google Sync address (eg iphone@mydomain.com). Now I have the four normal email accounts and one push (iPhone Pushmail) that receives all mail from the others instantly.

Another problem. Now I receive immediate notifications of new mail, but once I open up Mail it fetches from the IMAP accounts, and now I have duplicate new emails. Gross. To solve this problem I logged into to my iphone@yourdomain.com Google Apps (Google Sync enabled) account, and setup a filter that makes all messages “skip the inbox” and applies a label “iPhone” to them.

Then I went in to my Mail settings on my phone and enabled push for the new “iPhone” folder on my iphone@youdomain.com account.

The result: when new mail is received, I get an instant notification. The counter on Mail doesn’t increase, but there is a sound and the phone vibrates just the same. From this point I can open Mail and new messages are quickly fetched from the IMAP accounts.

This solution is far from elegant and I hope if you find something better you’ll share it with me. Hopefully Apple can work with more email providers to make push support a little more common.