AT&T considers the USVI to be part of their nationwide plan. Before I switched I had coverage with US Cellular and was delighted that my phone worked in the islands but upset when the phone bill arrived, it was over $600 for the week that we were in STT. Another thing is to leave your cell phone at home if it is considered roaming. Even if you don't use your phone but you packed it in your bag you can still get roaming charges for people calling your phone.

I can't say enough about how happy that we have been with AT&T. For $5.00 a month you can add the international plan to your phone. You will incur your per minute charges that differ in each country but the phones have worked great for us. My son has a phone in Germany, I've sent one to Afghanistan to my other son for an early Christmas present. I took mine to Italy last winter, and loaned it to my dad to take a cruise in Alaska. They have almost global coverage. My son had the opportunity (unfortunately he didn't go) to be a People to People ambassador and travel to Antarctica and they even had coverage there!

Sprint also works there.

ATT & Sprint are carriers in the USVI as noted above... if you have a nationwide plan with them you should be good to go. If you use another company you might call customer service and find out if your phone/plan will work in the USVI and how much? Better yet you might email too so you have it in writing!

PS: There are a couple areas on both St. Thomas and St. John where there is limited to no signal, consequently you might find yourself saying 'can you hear me now' from time to time. 🙂

--Islander

Just be sure you disable roaming, so your calls aren't picked up through BVI (international) towers. Where I live there is no ATT reception, so I have Sprint, but I have friends for whom the reverse is true.

We have ATT. On our first trip to STT, I called ATT before leaving to confirm coverage. They confirmed that the USVI was part of their nationwide plan, so no extra charge. So I told my son it was okay to call his friends back home. Get home and find a pretty large bill for the calls from there to the US. I called ATT and was told the the calls had probably been picked by BVI towers (we were staying on the north side of the island). They did agree to remove the charges.

This year before going to STT again, I called ATT to verify coverage and to confirm how to determine if phones were roaming. When we got to STT (again staying on north side), called ATT to have them check if phone was roaming during my call as the phone display did not indicate it was. They said as far as they could tell it was not. So my son goes ahead makes more than a few call to friends back home and guess what! Get home and another big bill. Again they took off the charges after I explained the efforts I had made in advance to avoid them. It was a bit of hassle but worked out for us each time. But I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to use pre-paid!

I have the crappy phone included with a Sprint calling plan. There is a small switch to turn off roaming when I'm at home on STT. When I visit the states and find myself in a dead zone, I flip the roaming switch on. It's no big deal and I don't have to call anybody to turn roaming on and off. I suspect fancier phones have fancier means of turning roaming on and off, and you'll need to consult your users manual as I doubt the folks at the cell phone company are proficient in the usage details of all of the various phones available on the market.

WE use Verizon and have never had a problem with reception.

We live on STT on the east end and there are a few spots that do not have coverage. They are on the roads going into town. Town had real good coverage. But most times there are no problems with coverage. If you go out to the North side there are many more drops. The issue is the coverage and there are not as many people on the North side, hence fewer towers. The towers are not actually owned by Sprint but they pay the tower company to process the calls

The carrier to stay away from in Verizon. They consider STT as an international site and you roam.

There are several local carriers you may want to talk to. Centinnal as well as Innovate.

billd

I have ATT and the nationwide plan and have never had any problems while visiting St.Thomas. No roaming to extra charges, just my basic bill that I usually pay while I am at home in the states. Then again I wasn't venturing much to the North side of the island.

I have an international plan on a TMobile phone- anyone know if this works well on STJ? Last trip, whatever it is that we had didn't work and the payphones at Concordia were marginal for making local calls.

WE just returned from STT & STJ and we have SPRINT. It worked great on STJ. We had our normal plan rates, however when we traveled over to STJ...in certain areas it would swtich over and tell us we were in international territory. So we would just not use our phone during that time. Just check with your carrier. They will let you know.

Do trac-phones still work in St Thomas? We used them for the last 2 years and they worked well then.