Tmo now in Guantanamo Bay, can I get a prepaid SIM when I visit?

[Colchicine]

I'll be working on the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba early next year and I'm pleased to learn they have contemporary cell service there now!

Myself and all of my coworkers use Verizon, so I was planning on buying a prepaid plan and SIM and use while down there. We could share the SIM as we will only spend a couple of weeks at a time for a project that is months long.

1) Can I buy a SIM and plan stateside and show up ready to use it, or do I have to sign up for it there?
2) I've had success with using a foreign SIM in my VZW phone, but it took a lot of troubleshooting to get it to work. Any reason why I can't temporarily use my VZW device for this?

https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/naval-station-guantanamo-bay.htm

 

[raino]

1) Since it's native coverage, I don't see why you couldn't buy a SIM and plan in the US. I'd actually recommend doing it stateside so that you can research everything as far as what you need and plan/buy accordingly.

2) The only major reason I can think of would be (TMO) compatibility. The press release doesn't really say which LTE network those towers are going to be for--band 2, 4 or 12, but from their coverage map/documentation it looks to be a band 2 network. Newer Verizon LTE phones should work on band 2; if you post which specific phone you're thinking of taking someone could tell you exactly how well it could work at Gitmo on TMO.

The press release also makes no mention of sub-LTE networks, so from it we don't know if non-voLTE calls are going to be accommodated or not. TMO's policies are such that not too many non-approved phones work on their voLTE network--you have to either buy your phone from TMO or an unlocked one that's approved (not too many are, especially other carriers' branded phones.)

 

[Colchicine]

Thanks! I'd certainly appreciate any compatibility advice, since for some reason networking is a void in my knowledge of electronics. I have a VZW S7. I had it work successfully on the Orange network in Romania.

I'd definitely prefer to buy the SIM and plan stateside since being a contractor makes buying things at the NEX difficult or impossible.

 

[raino]

Thanks! I'd certainly appreciate any compatibility advice, since for some reason networking is a void in my knowledge of electronics. I have a VZW S7. I had it work successfully on the Orange network in Romania.

I looked it up and the Verizon S7 has both LTE bands 2 and 4, in addition to UMTS 1900 and all four GSM (2G) bands. Still, if you can, I would recommend you check with someone already at GB how their calls are routed. Or maybe contact TMO through ExecutiveResponse@t-mobile.com or MediaRelations@t-mobile.com (an email address listed in that press release) and ask if they have a sub-LTE network available at GB.

Another benefit of buying a TMO SIM stateside would be that you could figure out if any on-device modifications are necessary for TMO service to work on your Verizon S7, which I'm assuming is the phone you said you had trouble with in your original post.