Hi, I'm new!

[brunette]

Hey everyone! I'm new to this board. My name is Nicole, I am twenty years old, and will be arriving in Buenos Aires on March 5th to study for four months. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, PA and haven't travelled much prior to this trip, so needless to say I am quite nervous...
I have a quick question about cell phones - right now I have a cell phone that was originally purchased in Spain. It has a SIM Card and all that jazz, and I was wondering if I can bring it along with me, replace the SIM Card, and have it work for me. Is this possible? - or will I need to purchase a new cell phone once I get there. If so, can anyone recommend any companies/deals?
Thank you all so much!

 

[bf4]

Hi Brunette,
As far as I know, I don't think your spain cell phone might work here
In BA, we have three main companies, Movistar (from Telefonica of Spain, if I'm not mistaken), Personal (it used to belong to France Telecom and now it has been bought at least partially by locals), and CTI movil
I can venture, from what I hear around that most people buy the service we call here of "tarjetas prepagas" where you pay x fee for x minutes, when you consume those minutes obviously your service cancels.
Do read the small print of these plans because there are endless variations, a call on a Sunday morning mightcost x and the same one on a monday night y. The same applies to long distance plans, so before purchasing one take your time to study them thoroughly. Take into account if you are planning on touring Argentina or you will stick to BA, some have better networks throughout all Argentina while others might have signal problems in off the beaten track areas. Or at least it used to be this way when it started back in the nineties, maybe by now they are all reliable throughout the country. If you read spanish, these links might help you make a sound decision.
http://www.telefonica.com.ar/movistar/
http://www.personal.com.ar/
http://www.cti.com.ar/home/index.html

 

[Paul_NL]

Cheapest pre-paid phone is like 150 to 200 peso. I would just buy a new one.
If it's tri-band you might be able to use your Spanish number