Has anyone else found that over the past few weeks especially the Digicell phone service has become abysmal? Dropped calls, calls which never connect, calls which appear to the caller to be unanswered but which never actually ring? It's almost constant now, by far the worst I've ever experienced my whole time here. I'm told they "have some problems", but are these signs the result? Several people I know have changed to Smart which apparently now works much better. My own experience with Smart when they first came out was that they were markedly worse than Digicell, and I haven't tried them since.

Complete crap service lately, took 21 tries to get a call through on Friday morning.

Error messages, the line sounds busy but the BTL message says the caller has the phone off, crackle on the line.......yup 2-3 weeks now.

Maybe all the power spikes, brown outs, and power outages have done in their equipment. The other thing that seems to happen is that when someone you are calling does not answer, rather than switching to leaving a message, it simply says the number is not listed. Curious.

I've had a Smart phone for over a year and have not had any problems with the service.

They were unloading a pile of Nortel equipment at BTL yesterday maybe improvements are on the way (or not).

I bought four Smart phones for staff when they first came out and loaded them with credits. A few weeks later every one of them simply died and Smart refused to replace them or give me the credit back. That was a very costly experiment, which is why I've never used them since,

Is it possible to get a Smart phone that uses a SIM card, or are they all integrated?

not had much trouble with digicell lately though I do not use my phone a lot.

correction on that not much trouble making calls but when I get one phone cuts in and out

Took me 9 or 10 tries to get connected to another Digicell phone this evening. Strong signal shown on my phone and apparently on the one at the other end, but the network wouldn't connect.

On Smart, I'm sure I heard some time ago that there were some phones that did use a SIM card. Does anyone here have a Smart phone with a SIM card?

Smart works! why bother with BTL anymore... They even (for areas where there are no landlines) offer fixed base cells and 128 kbps modems for internet, much better than the 2 kbps over BTL fixed cells or the 10kbps over their microwave telephone lines. In the end a working line is better than a line that goes dead for over a week at the time, and that is what it has been for about forever with them! Smart's cellphone rates are lower and they have a better coverage, what do you want more?

PS, Peter, just checked, no sim card, but who cares, it works! My Smart phones don't just die (unless I drop one of them in the sea), I had them for more than a year.

can you buy a SIM card from Smart for an unlocked phone?

From what I understand one of the main reasons many people go for smart is that you get to keep same number even if you happen to loose your phone which is a huge benefit for some and worth paying monthly for.

Question for those who might know: if I am correct, Digicell cancells you and you loose you number if you do not use the service for a period of time - 3 months I believe. A problem for some of us who leave the island for that length of time. What is Smart's policy on this?

You do not loose service with Smart. I stopped using one of my smart phones for 8 months and just checked last week and it's still working. Smart really makes more sense and is a lot cheaper.

True and you don't have to pay monthly for smart.

It's only my initial experience with Smart that makes me very wary. All four phones that I bought at the same time died within days of each other at only a month or two old, and Smart just didn't care at all. I lost over $800.

You have terrible luck with most everything Peter

Thank you for your heart-felt commiserations, Jesse.

Smart uses CDMA technology. BTL uses GSM technology. SIM cards only apply to GSM technology. CDMA phones have a hardwired identifier, not a replaceable card like with GSM phones.

Going to have to agree with everyone re: Digicell. Really pissing me off lately. Dropped calls, missed connections, error messages, calls going straight to voice mail, but then you cannot access voice mail. Crapity crap.

I use Digicell when we are down there (5 months a year). How can I intergrate a SmartPhone with internet service. I have Coral Cable @ $130 BZ per month, and I only use it 5 months out of the year. I was told if I disconnect my internet when I'm not there that I may not be able to re-establish service when I am there because of availability. Please advise!

Al - I've had them 'temporarily' shut down my internet and cable and did not have any 'reconnect' fees. I did it when I was going to be gone for two months.

bywarren - I've had the same prepaid digicell for about nine years. I simply call my number once every couple of months while we are not in Belize, leave a message and therefore keep my number activated. Had my phone stolen a couple of years ago and I do the same with my new digicell.

Thanks for that info. I was understood to believe you had to make calls within Belize. I leave my phone with a friend that does that, but from what you say that would not be necessary.

Harriet, how long do you have to wait for them to re-connect it when you get back?

Does anyone know if Coral Cable has an email address to contact them.

Try coralcable@ccvbz.net

The Digicell service continues to be abysmal. Does anyone know if they are even trying to sort it out?

bumped into some BTL engineers fixing a minor landline problem this afternoon. I asked them about the Digicell problems and they confirmed that they personally were having a lot of difficulty making & receiving calls, but they hadn't realised the problem was general. The senior guy called in to the Digicell engineers while I was standing there and they told him they weren't aware of any problems. He then described the problems he was having and referred to the problems I had told him about it. The Digicell guy said he'd look into it.

It seems incredible that no-one has reported the problems and that Digicell are unaware of any, but that's what they wanted me to believe. I suggest that everyone who is currently dissatisfied with Digicell go to the trouble to register a complaint with them. Then maybe we might get something done.