Good and bad news for Dominican Republic iPhone users! The Good News? Apple has announced that it will be making the new iPhone 4S available in the Dominican Republic as an “unlocked” version. Bad News? As expected not all features will be available in the DR. While both Orange and Claro will have the unlocked version available to their customers they will both have different features available.

According to Apple, for Claro the 4S iPhone will be locked to the carrier, have access to MMS and Claro hotspots in the Dominican Republic but will not offer authorized unlocking or visual voicemail. Orange includes the feature of having authorized unlocking but likewise will not offer the “Visual Voicemail” service.

Some of the more interesting features of the new iPhone 4S includes: (more…)

Just a quick note. If you or someone you know has a Claro phone in the Dominican Republic, Claro will give an extra 44% on any minute buys over 100 pesos. This is a pretty good deal so if you have family or friends in the DR this is a good time to Gift them some minutes.

Claro says that is will be offering this free minutes deal between Sept 1 and Sept 16

While in the Dominican Republic, you are likely to want to change your phone over to one of the local providers. The Main Providers are Claro and Orange.

We have friends using Claro, Orange and several of the other prepaid phone companies. So far Claro seems to be the Clear winner in our area. Orange cuts out frequently, and often when you try to call someone who has Orange their phone is not in operation.

Orange on the other hand seems to have the upper hand in ease of buying refill cards. If you are in any larger town you will see guys walking around with orange vests on selling Orange cards. They’re pretty hard to miss. Either way, many of the comados sell both Orange and Claro refill card so they are pretty easy to come by.

Claro often gives bonus minutes when you buy over 150 pesos at one time. While that may seem like a lot, 150 pesos is a little over $4.00 USD. To ask for them you can just say “tiene tarjeta (tar-yet-a) de Claro?” or “tiene tarjeta de Orange?”, if they say yes say your amount i.e. ciento cincuenta pesos (150 pesos).

Minutes as a gift
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If you are planning to stay in the Dominican Republic for a while you will likely want to get your own internet service. While you will find internet cafes in almost every little town in the country, you will likely find the cafe to be small, crowded, noisy and everyone sharing an about 1-2 meg download speed. Probably fine if you are planning to pick up your mail, but not real good if you need to spend much time for work, Skype or even internet research.

Like in the States, you have two main options, wired or wireless (mobile data plan). I’ve not seen a cable service here offering internet, so likely if you plan on getting a wired service than it will be DSL. This is normally cheaper, and faster than wireless internet and also have the advantage of not having a download cap or limit. However this is only available if you live in the middle of one of the larger towns. If you have opted to stay out on the outskirts of town where it is quieter, you may not have this option.

The option I choose is a wireless data plan. This runs off the same cell towers as the cell phones do, so coverage is pretty good throughout the country. While there are a few wireless internet providers in the country, I choose Claro Mobile due to their greater coverage. (more…)

The Good news: Yes you can have Internet connection in the Dominican Republic and you can expect to get a pretty good speed. The DR has some of the most state of the art 3G equipment in the world and it covers a good share of the island.

The Bad news: They seem to have some issues getting it configured properly. Hopefully that will improve in the future.

There are a variety of ways to get an Internet connection. Which one you choose will depend on the speed you need, how long you wish to have it, and how much you are willing to pay.

Hotels: If you’re just staying for a couple weeks it is best to choose a hotel with WiFi. Many of the hotels and “All Inclusive Resorts” offer this to their guests. You can ask before booking your hotel to see if they offer this, but it is unlikely they will be able to tell you how fast it will be. The Internet is pretty new here and not many people seem to understand bandwidth.

There are other options….. (more…)