Newbie! Arriving 4/5 for house hunt!

[DonJuane]

Other answers ....

Cell service:
There is AT&T that is a growing entity and offers a transparent experience out of the US if maintaining a US number is your goal and I highly recommend it over Google Fi (I recommend anything over Google actually due to their privacy policies). If you are stuck in a city and by that I mean you aren't inspired to do the constant cross country travel routine many of us aspire toward then MoviStar is normally a little cheaper and works well in most major cities. In contrast Telcel is usually more expensive and works in the most areas over the mountainous terrain of Mexico. It would be the best in and out of city provider and for frequent travelers. There's now free voice and data roaming to the US with Telcel like with AT&T to Mexico but if you attempt to communicate with Telcel in the US you run into the same "I don't dial a Mexico number" as I will explain in a moment.

I would consider AT&T reception-wise as somewhere between MoviStar and Telcel. AT&T will a lot of times have a free roaming agreement with Telcel towers but most of those alliances are disappearing as AT&T builds out its own network. If you have spent a great deal of time in Mexico, you are probably aware of all this and the only reason I mention is I hope you are experienced traveling in Mexico again before you invest in purchasing property. Also before you purchase property, investigate the reported high taxation rate that will be imposed on you in the event you decide to sell for any reason.

Many people who wish to maintain two separate realms of friend and relative contacts will purchase a phone supporting 2 SIM chips and phone nubers but this depends on your needs and budget. The main driving force in this is making it easy for friends to call you. Most people won't call you from the US if you have a Mexico number or from Mexico if you have a US number. Depending on how you lean, you can port a US number to a Mexico number via a VOIP service that will cost around 2 cents a minute for land line or 4 cents to a Mexican cell phone and that will allow contacting you from a US number (your old number can be ported) and then you use a Mexico SIM chip with local number to begin your new life in Mexico with an Mexico number. This way you actually get calls from people you meet because they believe you have an interest and are not only passing through Mexico. The ported US number to VOIP company can seamlessly transfer your old US number into Mexico but that still doesnt address not delivering a US number on caller ID back to the people you phone in the US. If you go exclusively with a service like AT&T that allows you to retain a US number, no one in Mexico will ever call you on that number, unless maybe if you own them a lot of money. Due to a lifetime of high tolls and surprise long distance fees, people of both countries have been conditioned simply not to call a number outside the country in fear that it will involve some hidden charges. So for the most part if you wish to maintain a business in the US and communicate with friends here in Mexico, for the time being you are going to need to manage two numbers with two SIM chips in something like the BLU or another dual chip phone. And this is even if you go AT&T with free Mexico data and roaming in Mexico or Telcel with free US data and roaming while in the US. You have to pay the money for two chips in order to keep the caller ID straight if you are dealing at the education level of most people and in particular, most clients if you are running a business. You don't want to "cheap out" if your business depends on it and actually the rates for a lost usage dedicated Mexico phone chip is not enough cost to chance that you can't communicate with friends you meet locally.

****** There are also apps tied to US services that will provide a US number for use which can be installed on any smart phone connected to a standard cell or wifi data network in any country, including the phone data plan provided via an exclusive Mexico voice number. This capability even extends via the free wi-fi service seen in restaurants all over the world and provides phone calls for pennies from anywhere in the world to a US number, with the recipient receiving the call as normal with a US callerID number displayed. Such apps installed on a smart phone (or via use of special adapter connected to the router anywhere in the world called home) can be used to maintain a US phone number presence away from the US on a smaller scale than a dedicated cell phone plan with regular SIM chip and dedicated voice number can provide. And in the case outside of "business critical" or minimally "strongly important" this may actually work for some. Typically a very low cost service based in the US with a US number is subscribed to as a VOIP service provider. There are many providers such as Skype MagicJack, etc. The one I have used for decades is callcentric.com?aid=71953 and they have been reliable.

Any of these VOIP companies will provide a portal to the US number you lease or old home phone number you have ported with the understanding that it will only be available to you for conversations when you are somehow connected to the Internet. With smart phones that means using the cell phone's data plan or a linked into a free or known wifi. That same service is also available via a wired connection to a router in a home. On the smart phone side, as long as there is data access and an excellent signal is available, the app will provide a link to make and receive calls in the US using the VOIP service. But the downside is that signal quality, cell network or someone's wifi greatly control the quality of the signal and thus the quality of the call. On the other had the same VOIP service is also available for much more serious-minded use when a dedicated adapter called an ATA is installed in the home. Plugged in one side of this ATA is a standard desk or portable phone while the ATA is wired with a LAN cable into the home's router.

Using this VOIP service either way, via a smart phone app or via a dedicated device in the home provides a cut-rate method to maintain a US number and presence world-wide with low incurred usage fees to boot. And with the home VOIP adapter being much more dependable than a compatible access of the VOIPfacility via smart phone app, conversations conducted on the home equipment are guaranteed to be much more reliable than an app struggling to get an excellent signal via a cell data plan or local wifi source that are both dependent on signal quality. Since the home configuration option is sent over a wired internet LAN connection to the home router, the home setup is therefore not at the mercy of reception issues that are seen with smart phone apps. Still with either, calls can be initiated and received from a US number anywhere in the world which can provide anything from a full business presence is the US with the same quality calls as if you were actually in the US and all the way down to simply supplying US banks with what they ask for rather than dealing with their otherwise imposed hassles forn you when calling from a number not on record and in particular one of foreign origin.

Internet:
Internet comes from city-wide fiber equipped TelMex or the cable company MegaCable at $35 a month and up. The speeds are likely higher than you have in the US. You will likely experience a lot of frustration with everything defaulting to Spanish and some of your favorite TV channels and Netflix blocked in Mexico but you can subscribe for under $10 a month to a VPN service if that's important to you, which will get your default websites back to English and allow access into US-centric entertainment channels.

***** There's also this trend in Mexico to use What'sAp as a boundary-less communication method that almost everyone in Mexico relies upon for most of their friend to friend communication. If you are willing to turn all of the information stored on your phone over to that company, then you can load it as an app and perhaps save some money and always be in touch. Of course if you are conducting business, you'll need to also need to maintain a traditional telephone number and you might consider more carefully such an invasive "free" offering.