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Can I take two cellphones back into MX?


southland

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I have done so. One was for US and the other for Mx calls. This was several years back.  simply told them why and there was no problem.

It might be a problem if they were still packed in boxes and looked brand new.

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Last Christmas coming in with 5 duffle bags full of electronic gear and I stated I had nothing to declare -- and each of the bags was beeping with some sort of electronic noise -- and I got a green light -- did cause some looks. Two cell phones should not be a problem.

 

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Since MX and USA both use the same band the phone you call Mexico becomes the USA phone once you change the chip, and visa versa.  It takes no more than one minute to RandR a chip.  Bringing a US-grown apple to Mexico would cause more concern than a cell phone.

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4 hours ago, modeeper said:

Since MX and USA both use the same band the phone you call Mexico becomes the USA phone once you change the chip, and visa versa.  It takes no more than one minute to RandR a chip.  Bringing a US-grown apple to Mexico would cause more concern than a cell phone.

That is very true for T-Mobile and AT&T. However some US carriers use different frequencies and do not have sim chips. An example of these carriers are Verizon and Sprint.

So when I go to the Apple store up North I ask for an unlocked phone that uses a sim chip (or sim card) and is compatible with T-Mobile, one that will work in Mexico, and other parts of the world.  I have never had a problem. I take that back, new iPhones are getting too expensive :) 

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Unlocking a phone can be done quite easily here in Mexico. And the price is also very reasonable.

Correct me if I am wrong but if I were to buy a phone for a discount and then promise to use the carrier (AT&T etc) for a certain period of time, perhaps a year or two, and paying a little extra each month of that period, I could do so but they would lock my phone to make it hard to skip out, stop paying and go somewhere else.

Because I also live up North it would not be in my best interest to skip out and not continue to pay off the purchase and use contract and simply have the phone unlocked here.

However, after you have used the phone for the guarantied period and change carriers and/or countries, I bet many folks forget to get their phones unlocked. And then need to get it unlocked once they get here and discover that it is still locked

So my question is, are the majority of folks getting their phones unlocked those who just arrived and who had  forgotten to have it done at the end of their contract?

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I have no idea who they are.  I've never had any sort of contract.  I buy cargas at the local abarrotes.  BTW, I've bought three used cell phones locally, like at garage sales and tiangues.  Two of them failed way too soon.  Too me a used item, giving all is equal, is worth about 30-40% of it's value as new.  Here it's more like 60%.  Just a generalization.  

So to help with your question, I assume if you had a contract with whatever rat provider you shouldn't expect to continue the service with an unlocked phone bearing their company's name.  But I doubt they could stop you from buying air time one chunk at a time as I do at the 7-11.

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