Bahamas Data Plan

I am researching the best way to get a good data plan for three months in the Bahamas.

I will be adding service to one of our AT&T phones for calls and texts and a bit of data to handle needs there. But I want a decent size GB data plan for the laptop so as to do internet and VOIP where I can, recognizing sketchy coverage in some places.

What have people found as the best solution? There is a lot of info on the web but it also includes at lot of mis-information as well.

We have a quad channel dual sim card unlocked phone. A couple bucks will get you any company's sim card, then just buy pre paid cards. I think it was $40 for 30 days for 5 or 6 gigs from Batelco. We did manage to get some open wifi with our booster as well. This was a year ago.

These are last year rates. We buy a sim card for $25 at a local store. It's not always easy to find a store that has them though. Then we buy prepaid cards. Data was $25 for 2 gigs and $49 for 5 gigs for 30 days. You can not carry over data. We have an unlocked phone to add the data to the sim card and use a USB dongle that plugs into the lap top. We've had coverage from Mayaquana to the Berry's in every anchorage but one. VOIP is a real data hog as is Facebook.

Just go find a BTC office and have them put a new SIM card in your phone. Prepay or the data. Much better and cheaper than using AT&T regardless of plans. I have a dedicated Bahamas phone now (my old Samsung Galaxy S5). I just enable the Wi-Fi hotspot to share the internet connection with any devices I need. Most commissaries will have the ability to buy more prepaid BTC credits if you need it and apply it to your data plan if you get low.

Panacea said:

Just go find a BTC office and have them put a new SIM card in your phone. Prepay or the data. Much better and cheaper than using AT&T regardless of plans. I have a dedicated Bahamas phone now (my old Samsung Galaxy S5). I just enable the Wi-Fi hotspot to share the internet connection with any devices I need. Most commissaries will have the ability to buy more prepaid BTC credits if you need it and apply it to your data plan if you get low.

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I understand. But we want to retain our usual number so that we can be contacted when needed by the children, family in the UK, and others rather than having to schedule VOIP times, or rely on texts. If I knew I could get the Bahamian number to everyone I would go that route, but chances are I would miss someone. It's worth the $40 pm for that peace of mind.

If I use one of our unlocked phones (BLU) for a Bahamian SIM and data plan, how easy is it to tether my laptop for data usage? What is the best solution. You mention a hot spot - do you create a hot spot from your cell phone and then connect the laptop to that? I will have to check that now to see if my set up works that way.

menzies said:

I understand. But we want to retain our usual number so that we can be contacted when needed by the children and family in the UK, rather than having to schedule VOIP times, or rely on texts.

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Hmmmm... Why not give them your bahamas 242 area code number? Thats what we do. Anybody that we will want to hear from has our BTC number. Food for thought.

menzies said:

If I use one of our unlocked phones (BLU) for a Bahamian SIM and data plan, how easy is it to tether my laptop for data usage?

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Not sure what phone you have but they can all do this. Go into settings and click on the "enable wi-fi hotspot" thingy. Connect your phone's wi-fi network from your laptop. Easy as pie.

Panacea said:

Hmmmm... Why not give them your bahamas 242 area code number? Thats what we do. Anybody that we will want to hear from has our BTC number. Food for thought.
.

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I have two 86 year old parents in Ireland. One is bedridden with Alzheimer's and just got out of hospital after a month. The other has dementia. I have four siblings over there holding the fort. I would rather just keep to what they know for now.

Will test that hot spot set up for the other phone today.

Menzies: We know cruisers who buy their sim cards through MRSIMCARD. Using their services, makes things a little more expensive but it can be less hassle. The last 2 years in Bimini, the BTC office did not have sim cards but fortunately we were able to get them at local connivance stores.

MRSIMCARD.COM - Get it before you go! +1703-9532272

menzies said:

I have two 86 year old parents in Ireland. One is bedridden with Alzheimer's and just got out of hospital after a month. The other has dementia. I have four siblings over there holding the fort. I would rather just keep to what they know for now.

Will test that hot spot set up for the other phone today.

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You might be able to set up call forwarding from your AT&T phone to your Bahamas phone.

Otherwise you'll just have to pay the extra roaming charges for the calls to your AT&T phone and use the Bahamas phone for data.

Google

I have not used, and am not a huge fan of their network partners, but I am intrigued by Google Project Fi - it has wifi and cell "bonding" of calls and the international flat rate for data $10/gb..

kev_rm said:

I have not used, and am not a huge fan of their network partners, but I am intrigued by Google Project Fi - it has wifi and cell "bonding" of calls and the international flat rate for data $10/gb..

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Bahamas voice is $0.10 per minute. Data rate as you said, $10/GB. I only have tested it in Bimini and to Nassau. It worked acceptably in both with voice ok and data functional but slow.