Archive for December 20th, 2009

GRENADA “bets on pre-paid sim cards”

The island nation of Grenada and the southern Grenadines are situated in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. It is the second smallest independent nation in the western hemisphere and located north of Trinidad and Tobago, and lies south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The history of Grenada starts during 1498, when this island was sighted by Christopher Columbus and named it the alias Conception Island, and later called it Granada. The island nation was called knouhogue by the Island Caribs, who lived there. When the Spaniards first came to Grenada, they did not settle down in this island nation. The English too failed in their attempts to settle down and ultimately the French fought and conquered Grenada from the Caribs in 1650. The French took control of the island from the Caribs and named the new French colony Grenade.

The island became a short-lived province of West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. In 1967, Grenada became an associated state of the United Kingdom, which meant that, while Grenada became responsible for its internal affairs, it had the assurance of military defense from the United Kingdom. In 1974, Grenada became independent and Sir Eric Matthew Gairy became the first Prime Minister of this island nation. Due to his authoritarian and dictatorial nature of running the government, he was removed in a Military Coup in March 1979. Maurice Bishop became the next Prime Minister. He failed to allow elections and his Marxist-Leninist socialism policies and his cooperation with the communist Cuba did not go very well with the country’s neighbours, who included Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Dominica and the United States Bishop was put under house arrest and ultimately executed. Few days later the island was invaded by the United States.

In 2004, Grenada, after being hurricane free for 49 years, was hit by Hurricane Ivan on September 7, which destroyed 90% of the homes. The following year, in 2005, on July 14, the northern part of Grenada was again hit by Hurricane Emily, causing an estimated damage of $110 million. Due to the perseverance of its people, coupled with its climate and help from the neighbouring countries, Grenada recovered with a remarkable speed.
A rolling mountain island nation, Grenada is full of fragrant spice trees and rare tropical flowers. It is bordered by beautiful beaches spotted with picturesque towns. It is a vibrant island which has been a major source of nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and cocoa. Cascading rivers, waterfalls and lush rainforests provides you with a serene peaceful environment when you visit this volcanic island nation and more so when you see those breathtakingly beautiful mountain lakes running down to the valleys.

The rich history and vibrant cultural heritage of the people in Grenada, with its local festivals, fairs and markets form the integral part of life in Grenada, makes it a grand tourist attraction. You will find that the centuries-old spice plantations and rum distilleries are still using the traditional way to prepare the products, with emphasis on quality rather than quantity. The tourism has grown in many folds in Grenada and evokes a different atmosphere with the friendly openness of the people living in this island. Grenada lives up to its reputation of offering the most stunning beaches and coral reefs, with miles of picture-perfect strands ringing the island, having entrancing black and sugar-fine white sand. The country offers much in offshore pleasure as well.

If you are looking for quiet walks on your visit to Grenada, the smaller sister island, Carriacou provides you with an ideal destination for walking. The island is hilly but not mountainous, and has smoother terrain. It has fine sand beaches and natural harbours with the most wonderful view of the distant northern Grenadine islands.

The island country has steady cooling trade winds with temperatures ranging from 24C/75F to 30C/87F, having the lowest temperature between November and February. The season between January and May is dry and during monsoon, which is between June to December, it does not rain more than an hour and not everyday. The island experiences climatic changes as the altitude increases.

If you are visiting Grenada, you should be carrying your cell phone with you. It helps you to be in touch with the people and make yourself available to the people who want to get in touch with you. In previous days, when mobile telephony was not available, you would have used the telephone in your hotel room to call your associates, friends and also your family back home. The bill that you paid for your calls was exorbitant and way out of the budget that you had in mind.

Next time, when cell phones were available, you took your cell phone on roaming, when you visited a country abroad. You paid for your outgoing and incoming calls at roaming rates. The bill that you received at the end of the month for your cell phone use abroad, was very high. While providing you with the roaming facility, your service provider has entered into a business contract with the service provider of the country or city that you were visiting. In entering into such a contract, your service provider has agreed to pay the other when-ever you use the network of the operator in the country that you are visiting. That means, each time you make a call and receive one, you do it through the network of the operator in the country that you are in and your service provider is required to pay the other for this service. This is the reason why you are charged for roaming.

A better way to save on such matters is to buy a pre-paid SIM card for Grenada. It saves you up to 80% of your expenses. When you buy a pre-paid SIM card for Grenada, you get a local number and you are charged at local rates. More-over, all your incoming calls are free, no matter where it generates from and you do not pay for roaming. You do not need to enter into any kind of contracts with a service provider and you do not receive any bill at the end of the month. Since you pre-pay for your calls, you are quite aware of the expenses that you are incurring for the purpose, which helps you to maintain the budget that you have set for it.

When you buy a pre-paid SIM card for Grenada, you get a small credit for your talk time, so that you can use your phone straight away. If you would want to replenish this credit, you can buy recharge coupons or vouchers, which you can use to top up your talk time credit. These coupons are available in many denominations and are available in practically in any shop in Grenada. You can choose the value of credit that you want and top up accordingly. For more information on pre-paid SIM card for Grenada, visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_sim.shtml

The SIM card is the Subscriber Identity Module in your cell phone. It is a small printed circuit board, of the size a little smaller than a postage stamp that goes in a slot at the back of your cell phone. As you take off the back cover of your cell phone, you will find the slot where the SIM card goes in. The circuit card has a microprocessor with its memories, and holds your unique information in form of, you as the phone’s owner, the SIM card number, your subscription information, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) of your cell phone and other security details. As you switch on the phone, the information is transmitted to the network of the city that you are visiting. This is checked against the records held at the database and if found satisfactory, you are logged into the network. At this time you are ready to use your cell phone.

When you visit Grenada you will require a GSM cell phone, since the networks at Grenada operate on GSM 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900MHz frequency bands. If you have a GSM cell phone, your cell phone will work in Grenada. The networks in North America, Canada and a few neighbouring countries operate on 850MHz and 1900MHz, which matches two of the GSM frequencies of Grenada networks. This is not the case with the major countries in the world. The frequency bands, 850MHz and 1900MHz, are unique ones which are not used in most of the countries and this sets apart North America, Canada and the others from the rest of the world.

Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) technology was developed in Europe and the first call on the network was made in the year 1991 by Radiolinja in Finland. GSM is being used by over 214 countries and has over 80% subscribers within the total mobile users in the world. It offers four sets of frequency bands, 850 MHz, 900 MHz, and 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz, and these are distributed to the different regions in the world, with a few regions using the common ones. The networks in North America, Canada and few other countries in the Americas use 850MHz and 1900MHz, which may be mentioned as exclusively used by that part of the world. The major advantage with GSM technology is that, you have the facility to be in touch with the people anywhere in the world and make yourself available just about from anywhere in this planet.

If you do not have a GSM cell phone, you have the option to buy one or rent. If you are a frequent traveller, you may consider buying a multi-frequency band cell phone, which you may take with you to countries that you regularly visit. If you are not a frequent traveller, it is economical for you to rent a GSM cell phone, which is compatible with the frequency bands operated in the country that you are visiting. For more information on buying or renting a cell phone, visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_gsm.shtml

GSM cell phones are available in multi-frequency bandwidths.. The Quad-band phone is compatible with all the GSM frequencies and will work in any country that you visit. The Tri-band is compatible with 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands, and operates in most part of the GSM region. There is a Dual-band operating on 800MHz and 1900MHz GSM frequency bands.

Whether you are taking your GSM cell phone, buying one or renting, you must be sure that your cell phone is not SIM locked. If the cell phone is SIM locked, you will not be able to use your pre-paid SIM card for Grenada or any other for that matter. There are reasons why a cell phone is SIM locked. It is mostly done by your service provider when you enter into a contract, where one of the clauses stipulate that you will be required to use their services for a definite period of time, which is usually for a year. The contract also promises to let you have a cell phone free of cost. As the cell phone arrives, you get a SIM card also. The cell phone is SIM locked and will not work with any other SIM card other than the one belonging to the service provider. This ensures that you cannot use any other service other than the one you signed the contract with. At the end of the contract period, the cell phone becomes yours and the service provider helps you to unlock your phone. After the phone has been SIM unlocked, you are at liberty to use any SIM card that you would want. It becomes imperative for you to find out at the first instance, if your cell phone is in SIM unlocked condition.

A pre-paid SIM card for Grenada is not only affordable but gives you substantial saving in your calls. You pay for your calls as the locals do and there are no charges for your incoming calls. You do not pay for roaming either. Being pre-paid, you are in control of your expenses and you do not receive any bill at the end of the month.

Cell phone use overseas. In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You’ll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 or the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984.

Cell phone use overseas.
In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You’ll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 of the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984