The telephone situation in Mexico can be flabbergasting, even for natives. I should say especially for natives because year after year they are the ones that have fed Mexico's massive telephone monopoly, Telmex, a sizable portion of their hard earned wages each month. Mexico's regular telephone service is the de facto private monopoly of one of the world's richest men, Carlos Slim. As of this writing, he is vying for the position of the world's richest man (and some suspect that he has already passed Microsoft's Bill Gates to take that title).

Telmex was privatized in 1992 under what many describe as dubious circumstances during the presidency of, Carlos Salinas de Gortarri (who remains to this day Mexico's most disliked person).

As of this writing, I'm happy to say that the days of $1,000 USD telephone bills are in the past. TELMEX finally offers some very attractive plans. One can today get telephone service which boasts 2MB of high speed DSL along with unlimited local and national calls for about $100 USD per month. VOIP services such a Vonage now offer a Latin American plan with free unlimited calls to various cities in Mexico (including Acapulco) for about $40 USD per month. A new cable telephone service is rumored to to be on the way from Cablemas - A major Acapulco provider of cable television and internet service.

Cell Phones

Cell phones are a great option if you need to communicate while in town and everyone wants to do their own thing. Relative to buying phone cards and looking for a pay phone, if not reasonably priced, then at least they are much more convenient. You can buy "throw away" cell phone for little more than the price of the phone card at local convenience stores such as Oxxo. You can get a cell with $50 USD worth of credit for about $65 USD. The main advantage of this over payphone is that you can give out your number while you're here and can receive local calls even if you run out of credit.

That's the good news. The bad news is that cell phone reception is often bad in Acapulco, espcially in Las Brisas. It's recommended to always buy the largest denomination of phone cards (tarjetas telefónicas) as you will receive extra minutes free.

Cell brands in Acapulco (past and present) include Telcel, Unifon, Iusacell, and MovieStar. Telcel adn MovieStar have the best reception, while Telecel is the most expensive. It's also by far the most popular and you can buy Telcel phone card almost anywhere. Unifon is cheaper, but the range and reception are pretty limited. And Iusacell, expensive and has iffy service. You can get Nextel and iPhone here too.

Land Lines

It's actually much easier than you'd expect to get a land line in Acapulco. You just march down to the big Telmex office, take a number, wait two or three hours, a nice lady helps you fill in the blanks, you pay an installation fee (maybe) and in a lighting fast four weeks to three months later, you are the proud owner of a Telmex telephone.

Calling Mexico from Abroad

You dial (011 - 52 - area code - number) unless you are calling a cell, in which case you dial (011 - 52 - 1 - area code - number).

International Dialing Codes

Thankfully, in 1997 Mexico deregulated its long distance and international telephone service so the best option is to use a discount calling card from your own country and go around the system by connecting yourself to an international operator. Here's what you would need to dial most commonly:

AT&T operator: 001-800-462-4240
Sprint operator: 001-800-877-8000
M.C.I. operator: 001-800-674-7000
Bell Canada: 001-800-010-1990
AT&T Canada: 001-800-123-0201
TELMEX: 01-800-728-4647 (800-SAVINGS)

Dialing Nationally (Inside Mexico)

To dial a national number, start with 01 then the area code and number.

Money Saving Tips

Ask your hotel operator about their fees and rates before placing a call.

When walking down the street, never pick up a phone that advertises rapid, direct collect calls to your home country. These are the biggest rip-offs known to humankind. Even if you are calling a millionaire with an emergency, you shouldn't do it because it just encourages this sort of racket to continue. Call a friend using one of these devices and that friend won't be a friend when the bill arrives. You can easily run up a hundred dollar bill in minutes. Avoid collect calls altogether.

Using a Telmex Payphone

Although there are few coin operated telephones situated around town, to make a call you'll likely need to buy a far less troublesome Ladatel tarjetas telefónica (pronounced tar-hetta tel-eh-foh-knee-kah), which you can buy almost anywhere.

Tarjetas telefónicas (phone cards) come in denominations of 30 pesos, 50 pesos, 100 pesos, 200 pesos, 300 pesos. They used to feature some unique and interesting art, but more recently they figured out that they could selling advertisements on them so now they're not quite as interesting. If you're going to be talking awhile, go with the largest denomination so that you don't have to try switching cards live because you'll probably hang up on yourself.

Real Acapulco Tip: When choosing a street telephone, try to get one as far away from the traffic as possible. Otherwise, fifty percent of your conversation will be comprised of words and phrases like: "what", "What was that?" , 'I couldn't hear you" "Could you repeat that?" and my personal favorite... "[insert expletive here] bus".

What are all those buttons for?

You'll know that you're going native when you can do one thing… switch phone cards without hanging up on yourself.

When you're making a long distance call, being able to switch phone cards and performing other assorted phone-related operations is essential to your ability to manager the already somewhat strained communication situation where you cell probably doesn't work and you're hotel phone is God-awful expensive. So, that said, here is Real Acapulco's best attempt at showing everyone the ropes, which despite what the picture above might suggest, is not really as easy as 1,2,3...

The first button with the picture of a hand changing phone cards is the button you use to change phone cards. The key is to not wait until the card has run out of credit to try it, but to make the switch change before you run out.

The second button, with the picture of a telephone receiver with sound coming out of it and a little arrow pointing up is used for...

The third button, the one with the picture that of the finger pressing the buttons that with the letter RE, is Redial. If you need to dial the number you just marked again.

The fourth button with the two faces that say ABC is the language button. You can press this to change the language displayed in the digital display above.

The last button, with the telephone, is the button you press to revalidate the telephone card. This is useful because you don't have to hang up, remove the card, re-insert it, and then pick up the receiver again.