cell phone in DR

I am moving to the DR in about a month or so. I wanted to bring my cellular phone with me. I just got a Nokia 8260, which is a very small digital phone. I know I can get it hooked up in the DR, but does anyone know if it can be digital? Also, if not, does anyone know the name and model of a phone that i can buy in the US and have it hooked up in the DR as digital? Thanks

http://www.bocachicabeach.net/staying_in_touch.html

If you can activate it with Codetel, which you say you
can, than there is no problem.
Only thing is, it all depends where you are going to live.
Codetel is hugely backward. Most of the island is still analogue
SD, Santiago , POP and some other big cities are
digital. But go to the smaller places like Cabarete and
it is all still analogue.
My nokia 6185 dual switches as needed.
Codetel Sosua has a program to switch analogue phones
to digital for little money.
However they don't tell you that if you go out to Cabarete
15 km away for dinner, you are going to be out of luck.
Better buy digital from Orange ( french telecom )
digital based on the euro system GMS vastly
superior to american and dominican CDMA systems.

Ive just moved to DR. Brought my Nokia 5160 ATT cellphone. It cannot be connected as digital by Codetel ony analog. Something to do with Codetel using different frequency for digital. Anolog service is very "Iffy" even arount Santo Domingo. Better than nothing though.

Don't have experience with Tricom or the other French teleco although understand their coverage is limited.

I have the the Nokia 8260. I assume that your service is through AT&T wireless. You can not convert this phone to digital in the D.R. because it works on a TDMA digital system where as the systems of the existing mobile tel providers in the D.R. are CDMA and GSM. You can hook it up to analouge. however I read in the 8260 manual that the phone is design to work much better in digital zones and has weaker analouge capabilities than the typical analouge phone. If you plan on living there I would suggest getting a new digital phone.

Phyllis, could you explain why it doesn't work??

... not really sure why - but even after calling the place where I bought it in Canada, from POP and obtaining the 6-digit secret code, they still couldn't activate it in POP! I ended up buying one in POP.

One of the posts tells you that codetel has hardly any digital coverage and then tells you to try Orange. Orange is great... GSM (not cdma or AMPS) digital and it is what I use but it is a new company and coverage is quite slim at the moment. Since I hardly leave the city or go to remote places it is fine for me and I love its sms capabilities. I have a Nokia 8290.

The Nokia 8260 is the same phone I have but for a different network, specifically TDMA. You will find that most companies here use CDMA/PCS.

These companies are Codetel, Tricom or Centennial. They all target different customers and who you choose will depend on your needs and budget. Basically my default is Codetel because it has the greatest coverage and where it does not have coverage you can at least use analog. All these companies offer their coverage on maps online.

www.orange.com.do
www.codetel.com.do
www.tricom.net
www.aacr.net

So basically yes your phone works here but in a limited way. There are 8200 series models from nokia that work for cdma try their site for more info.

Thank you for all the info!