Calling from Mexico to US with Verizon...

[Greenlee]

I have Verizon service. A few times a year I go to Mexico on a hunting trip with a group of about 10 guys. There are a couple of guys in the group with T-Mobile and Cingular who can call home to the U.S. by dialing the country code + area code + phone number. Me and a few other people in the group that have Verizon get a busy signal as soon as we press "send" no matter what phone number is dialed. It's like there is a block on using the phone there because it doesn't matter what phone number is dialed, and the phone has a full digital signal. I have called 611 customer serive twice and they had no solution. The last time I called customer service, the person I talked to recommended that I go into a Verizon store close to the border and ask them. WTF???

Does anyone know how to place a call from Mexico on a Verizon phone? I am tired of having to borrow my friend's phones to call home every time I go to Mexico

[ZaphodB]

Assuming you have international roaming allowed on your account (requires a credit check), you should be able to dial it.

Now, here's the weird part. Telcel (one of the GSM operators, and the one on which T-Mo and Cingular roam) will automatically add the dialling code for international access when you dial 1-310-bla-blah. Telefonica Moviles and Iusacell, the CDMA operators, do not... so you will need to do one of two things, assuming a phone number of (972) 234-5678:

Dial 00-1-972-234-5678.
Dial +1-972-234-5678. (The + symbol can usually be made by holding down the 0 or * key) The advantage to using + is that it will work in any country -- it replaces the 00 in Mexico, the 01 in Singapore, the 011 in America and Canada, etc.

[Greenlee]

We were dialing the country code. If I understand you correctly, by dialing "+" you don't need to know the country code. That's good to know.

I suspect that the problem is that I don't have international roaming enabled on my account. I suspected it was something like that it in the beginning, but it threw me for a loop when customer service could not tell me what the problem was. I guess I need to tell them "please enable international roaming," instead of telling them "the phone won't work in Mexico." You would think that would be the first thing they would check.

It seems like I remember seeing a flyer in the Verizon store a while back regarding Mexico calling. Since I live in Texas, it's probably a pretty common issue

[ZaphodB]

You do need to dial the country code (which is 1)... however, you do not need to dial the international access code (which is 00 in Mexico and 011 in the U.S.).