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I have a hard time understanding how I will be charged in Montevideo, Urugay for my phone. I've seen this answer which links me to this wiki page with the prices of all mobile operators. I'm an exchange student and will be visiting Uruguay in a few weeks and spend about 6 weeks there. I bring two friends, who will probably use the same mobile operator. I want to call them cheaply but it is also important to call my host without spending a fortune (who will probably be using another operator). I use a lot of data (about 1-2GBs per month) but I don't care about LTE (since I will be using an old iPhone 3GS).

If I chose Claro, I'd probably spend $104.23 on data alone. That is way above my budget and I don't even know who much data I'm allowed to use. Did I miss something here, because this seems to be unrealistic.

Antel seem to be the best option to choose. The SIM card is just $2.27 and as far as I've understood, I'll get 250 SMS, 3 free destinations (i.e. 1000 min to a landline, 1000 mins, and 1000 SMS to another Antel mobile. I'll also get to choose 5 numbers I can talk to for just $0.05. This seems to be incredible cheap. Data is also cheap so maybe I'm wrong. $23.70 for almost 2GBs for the whole stay is fair, however, I'm not sure if I have to choose Prepaid Mobile Broadband or Prepaid Mobile Internet.

I don't get Movistars data prices at all. Do they charge me for every 50MB? Do they actually distinguish between "social media" (e.g. Facebook) and other services? I will be using VPN anyways, so they won't (hopefully) be able to analyze my traffic.

I was hoping someone (local) could help me understand their pricing policies and what I is best for my case.

Community
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Matt3o12
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2 Answers2

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I live in Uruguay (and use ANCEL), but I'm in no other way affiliated with them. I just use them and recommend them when have friends visiting because they're, in my opinion, the best choice available here.

With their Kit Prepago, you get:

  • 500 SMS to other ANCEL mobiles
  • 512 MBs to use the LTE network (or 384 MBs if you use the 3G infrastructure)
  • 1000 mins to a landline, 1000 mins to another ANCEL mobile, 1000 SMS to another ANCEL mobile (note that they don't have to be the same mobiles, so if you're 3 friends, you could put one of them as your free contact to talk to and the other one as your free contact to send SMS)
  • 5 ANCEL mobiles you can choose to talk to at 0.99 UYP per minute (once you set them, you need to wait 2 or 3 months to change them)
  • The cost to other UY mobiles (ANCEL or not, no matter the city where they are) is 7,21 UYP per min (you can find a table with prices here). That's the default plan for prepaid lines, but there are other plans you can choose from:
    • Franjas: Mañana, Mediodía, Tarde y Noche: You can choose a range (8am to 12pm, 12pm a 4pm, 4pm to 8pm, 8pm to 12am or 12am to 8am). On that range, you will pay 4.44 UYP per minute, but out of that range you pay 9.42 UYP per minute
    • Nights and weekends (aka Plan Ocio): Calls made Monday to Friday from 8pm to 8am, all day on Saturday, Sunday and holidays cost 3.14 UYP per minute. At other times, you pay 11.70 UYP per minute
  • There is no roaming in Uruguay, so no matter where you are you will always be charged the same
  • There is no cost to receiving calls

You need to pay 60 UYP for the SIM card + whatever you want to use to talk. You can see the conversion rates between UYP and USD here. Also, all free numbers are good while you have remaining credit on your account, and as long as you have charged at least 100 UYP in the last 30 days.

If you run out of data, you can get the best value by using BAM (Banda Ancha Móvil or mobile broadband). With this you can buy data on demand by sending a message to 226:

  • texting 100: you get 384 MBs good for 30 days for 100 UYP
  • texting 200: you get 768 MBs good for 60 days for 200 UYP
  • texting 300: you get 1152 MBs good for 90 days for 300 UYP
  • texting 500: you get 1920 MBs good for 90 days for 500 UYP
  • texting BAM 100: you get 1024 MBs good for 5 days for 100 UYP
  • texting BAM 200: you get 3072 MBs good for 10 days for 200 UYP
  • texting BAM 300: you get 10240 MBs good for 30 days for 300 UYP

You can follow the links to access to the source of the data (in Spanish). The only data I know from using it (but I haven't been able to find on their website) is the time you need to wait to change the "Números Amigos" (those 5 you get to talk to at 0.99 UYP per minute).

g3rv4
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I'm not local from uruguay, but I spent a few summer vacations there. It semes that ANTEL has around 50% of the mobile market and, as far as I remember, ANTEL was the only company providing POTS telephony in Uruguay. It used to be a nation-wide monopoly and it seems to remain this way as this link (in spanish) says. That's why they can provide a much cheaper service for mobile phones, they have a great share of customers both in landline and mobile telephony.

The prices for mobile internet in ANTEL can be seen here (also in spanish). Looks like you'll pay less than US$20 (UYU 500) for 2Gb of data. For voice, if you choose the super plan, you'll get 1.000 minutes to a landline, 2.000 minutes to 2 mobiles and another 5 friends for US$0,05/minute (UYU 0,99) for US$11,90 (UYU 319).

Are those prices within your budget allowance? I suppose it can't get any cheaper than that and ANTEL seems like a good choice.

P.S.: I'm not in any way affiliated with ANTEL.

gmauch
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