i´ve been living in madrid for almost 2 months now and i´m spending a ton on cell phone costs since i´ve gotten an alcatel phone w/vodafone at a Phone House. since i´m a u.s. citizen and can´t get a contract plan with vodafone, i spend a lot, too much, recharging and recharging my phone at El Corte Ingles. i can´t afford to spend more than 20, even 15 euros a week calling people and 20 euros can easily be gone in a day.

are amena or movistar cheaper options? what can i do with my alcatel phone with vodafone. i´ll even sell it and get another if it´ll be cheaper in the long run to use amena or the other.

now for the home phone: my new roommates almost never let me use the house phone to make calls and it´s just ridiculous with how long i hear it takes to get a phone installed here. my roommates say it took them almost 5 months to get their phone and they´ve allocated a place in HELL for telefonica.

january, i´ll be moving into another piso compatido here with absolutely NO home phone whatsoever.

so what the hell do i do? help me please. text messaging everyone is driving ****ing nuts and i like talking on the phone and not having to rush things.

are there any good and cheap locutorios anyone can recommend to me? it´s getting too cold to call from a payphone.

please please people please give me advice!

Vodafone is bad? This is of interest to me, because next semester when I am in Granada...I was planning on getting a cell phone. The information I have received from past students was that they paid about 70 euros for the phone, which also included 20 euros worth of talk time, I believe this was with Vodafone. How fast do the minutes really go?? If you are spending 20 euros a week to recharge the phone, how many minutes are you using???? Thanks for any info!!!
Kelly

It was 2 weeks for me to install the telefonica line at home, I don't know if it's diferent for a foreigner. Do you phone abroad?
The cell phones with cards are really expensive, they're more to receive calls than to make them, or at least to do short calls.
The cheapest way to phone abroad are the locutorios, because they have offers. I don't know where do you live, there's one, for example in calle de la Cruz in Huertas, and another inside the metro in Plaza de Castilla.

There are some stores that will reprogram your call phone so that you can use it with any phone (SIM) card from any company. I don´t think it´s exactly legal, so you probably won`t see signs for it, but maybe ask friends if they know any places that do it. I think that it is just the pre-installed software in the phone that limits it´s abilities to work with different companies.

If you need to get your phone unblocked to change SIM cards then there are any number of places, some advertise in the Metro paper. I got mine done in a place i think it was called "movil man" on c/ montera just off sol, and also got my card there as well for a really good price- something like just under 40 to be unblocked and for the new sim card with €20+ on it.

When i was in Spain I used Amena. It was pretty good. I got a phone for about 70 bucks with 30 euros worth of free calling. I never spent more than a few euros a week on calls. I guess it depends on who you're calling. I made all of my international calls on pay phones with telefonica cards. A 6 euro telefonica card gave me between 15 and 20 min. call time to Boston. I know nothing about vodafone, but it does sound like a rip off. I also suggest being careful about who you're calling, and how much. The good thing about the phone is that there are caller id on most of them, so you don't have to pick up all the time if the calls not too important. Hope this helps!

I had my cell phone unlocked in a telephone shop at Gaztambide, 50 (not sure about the number) for just 10 euros. They did it in front of me and now I can use it with any company.

Unfortunately, all the cell phnes companies in Spain have very similare rates for international calls and they are very expensive.

If you are moving to a new flat, you may agree with your roommates to install a landline phone. It's a bit expensive (about 180 euros) but then you can have Telefonica's Europa 15 or EEUU 15 plans where you can call to somewhere in Europe or the US 15 minutes everyday for 15 euros a month. Note that the bearer of the contract risk himself to pay the bill if the others don't pay it.

Amena is the best, I think. All my Spanish friends use it. Movistar is the most expensive. But then again my cell phone has always been more or less a pager because we only text messaged each other because of the all around high cost of cell phones.

Use phone cards to call the US - MUCH MUCH cheaper. I THINK the cheap I used was called Eurocity. I remember it was blue and had pictures of Spain, Italy, France and another country on it as well as the stars from the European Union. It was a very good deal. Something like 3 hours for 12 euros.

Melinda

You can check the rates here (those are direct links): Movistar Amena Vodafone

And those are the rates with Telefonica with a landline phone (without any special discount):

4A.- EE.UU (zona continental sin Alaska) Establecimiento de la comunicación 0,1187 € Tarifa Fijo-Fijo (1) Tarifa Fijo-Móvil (1)
0,1200 €
(1) Facturación por segundo adicional (Precio en euro/minuto).
*NOTA: Valores redondeados sin IVA.