Cell Phones in Dumaguete

I come to Dumaguete to relax and not bother with details.

I am new to cell phones; bought a Nokia in Manila, now have sun and globe sims.

I want prepaid but I don't want to mess with constant trips to cell phone outlets for loads,etc.

Globe does not appear to work where I am in Duma. Sun works sometimes if I can figure out which prefix numbers to add for various cities and whether it's cell or landline. Still half the time the numbers do not work and I get nothing or error messages.

Is there a prepaid load I can buy where I don't have to visit cell outlets frequently and the "load" is good for longer than a couple weeks? I won't be doing that much texting, ridiculous really monkey punching buttons to send short messages.

Really it's all B.S. to me, scams by cell companies to get your money, sorry.

Thanks for any helpful info.

 

had the same problems with Globe and Sun, now have a better service with Smart Buddy. 500 pesos can last about 2 months, depending on usage, and the the service area re signal is much broader than the other two.

 

get a plan from whatever company you want, with calls, text, data-transfer, whatever fits your needs, pay cash for a year in advanced done. If you exceed your limit from the plan, the cost gets deducted from your credit.

Works great for me like a prepaid load-card, just with the money I "load" to my account-plan.

Each few month I go to the office give them 5K cash (can be done online). Balance and details of your calls, text or internet/data transfers are on your monthly bill and can be checked anytime online on your account.

you can't keep the prepaid number, but one mass-text solves that problem

 

If you like...I got lots of extra cads here for activation over online and txt loading to be load to any prepaid cellphones company in the Philippines. I can give it to you for FREE or to any DI members . Just pm me here. But the load wallet => it means the balance load , you have to load it for yourself via bank or their centers. Only the activation card to avail such service is FREE. Ive been using this online loading to my prepaid mobile simcards so I wont go to stores or shops to buy load and I like the idea when the load wallet got no expiry.

 

What's a "cad", "balance load". Do I have to give bank info to load that way? Anyone have a cents per minute breakdown for the globe, sun and smart; indexed by the different load types? I am being charged like 20-30 cents a minute for calls to other Phil towns, way too much imo.

 

Its actually an activation card is sold at SRP of 250php each. But I dont wanna sold it...I wanna give it to anyone who wants to use it.

 

My card carrying system

There are lots of good answers offered here. I am still on the phone card system. I really hate to run out of load, so I carry two load cards in my wallet. A 300 P card to reload and a 100 P card a reminder that "I am lazy and better get another card quickly." When I run out of load I load the 300 card and try to remember to pick up a load card when I am at a convenient location. When I forget and have to use the 100 P card then I go directly to a card pick up.

There are a few locations in town that give discounts on the card. Lee Plaza is one that gives a good discount. The shop on the second floor in the Mall give a very small discount. "Rob and Run" gives a good discount, but I had warranty issues on a phone, and when they laughed at me then I decided not to go into their stores anymore,

 

Im using the online prepaid e-loading system...aside from the discount i will get, whats the use of my computer. Im too lazy to go out and fall in line at the store just to buy load. I can teach you guys here how to do it.

 

I plan on eventually retiring to Dumaguete. I will not be living there full-time until late 2016, or 2017. However, I will be spending more and more time in Dumaguete in the interim, and would like to settle in to the move slowly over this transistion period. I can start the process by acquiring a Philippines cell number. On previous visits, I simply bought a card and reloaded as necessary.

In the US, my cell payments are simply run through my credit card automatically. It's wonderfully simple. Is there anything like that in Dumaguete? Who has best coverage these days there? (This thread is over 2 years old, so I figured things may have changed, i.e. improved, a bit since the last post.)