Fax/Email/Land Line/Cell phone - St Thomas

If it's anything like STX, your mileage will vary. We have 3 land lines at our house that each work well about 99% of time. Some of our neighbors have much worse experiences with their lines. Since phone lines are important to you, you should get more than one, and back it up with a cell phone and/or Skype (VOIP). Be ready with plan B, C and D.

When one of our land lines goes down, I ask Innovative to forward the bad line to one of our good lines until the repair is done. Repairs take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on luck, the weather, and sometimes the availability of a bucket truck.

We agree with stxbob, also a fax is not a bad plan b/c just in case internet goes down even for minutes sometimes business can't wait ; )

On St croix we use at&t cell, skype, broadband vi, innov for landline and for fax

The last couple months used landline a lot more since I was having at&t tower issues, so in those cases we forward calls or just call the other line / voicemail frequently to check for messages.

I woul suggest calling for package info and prices depending on your needs it will vary.

Good luck and hope that helps!

Thanks for the info, anyone on St. Thomas have recommendations/prices on the above services.

Also, does the cell service come in clear(static and delay free) to the mainland/Canada.

Thanks.

When the cell service works it comes in fine. There is little or no overlap of cells so if the tower serving your area goes down you are out of service until a tech arrives from Puerto Rico. Some times this can take a couple of days. Unfortunately multiple day outages are not uncommon hence the advice earlier to have a plan B and even a Plan C. In my case I have a MagicJack and Skype. In addition both these apps are installed on my cell phone so if WiFi is working I can make phone calls or if necessary go to a working hot spot and make calls.

Also be aware that not all cell services work in all areas on any of the islands. Don't sign a contract until you know service will work where you are living and working. Same thing with internet service.

As part of any contingency plan you will also need a standby generator to keep all your gadgets working when the power is out which happens frequently in the USVI.

Don't take anything for granted here,

Jim Dandy great point for generator !

Also just to add... battery backup cheap insurance 🙂 set up before generator in case there is a delay or temp. voltage issue.

Sometimes the generator is set up to handle voltage issues and there may or may not be a delay in service, secs...mins..again cheap insurance and smooth transition :-).

sort of related, Sprint's Femtocell works in the VI (or at least it does on Broadband VI)....AT&T's does not (GPS restricted).

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-counts-600000-femtocells-plans-update-airave/2012-05-09

As far as what's available on St Thomas, the same recommendations apply to both islands. I must say that in all my years here I've never (touch wood maybe) had any major issues with my landlines but the advent of common usage of cells has created a whole set of problems with poor spotty reception not unusual.

Innovative for a land line as that is your only choice for a land line. Use BroadbandVI for internet and AT&T for Cell. There are some areas depending where you live tho that you may not be able to use Choice (bad chioce), BroadbandVI, Sprint or AT&T so make sure you find out if you can recieve signals in the areass you choose to live. You can scan and e-mail docs instead of faxing if you only want one landline/fax to share with phone.

When Innovative's landline goes down and you report it, it can take 2 weeks for Innovative to send someone to repair your phone so while cost effective to bundle service from Innovative, not realistic unless you can do without until they get around to you.
If you like waiting in long lines to replace your non working cable box and having interuptions in service when power goes out, use Innovative Cable TV, if not use, Satellite DISH TV. Above all, indeed, have a generator because power goes out quite frequently and in Storm or Hurricane related situations, power can be out from days to months at a time.

I've done a fair amount of business out of my apartment and here is the setup that has saved my ass multiple times: I use a laptop instead of a desktop, I have 3 batteries for that laptop, I use tethering on my iPhone for internet if the power goes down and thus my dsl connection is gone, I have the Mophie Juicepack case for my iPhone which will charge the phone completely full from completely dead without plugging it in, and I have a power adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter in my jeep so I can charge my laptop or phone. That plus a couple of 5 gallon gas jugs and I'm ready for at least a tropical storm, if not a Cat1 hurricane.

Or so I like to think.

make sure you find out if you can recieve signals in the areass you choose to live.

What is a good place to live on the island for Cell/phone/cable service?

make sure you find out if you can recieve signals in the areass you choose to live.

What is a good place to live on the island for Cell/phone/cable service?

Almost impossible to answer where cellphones are concerned as in every area (because of our mountainous terrain) you can come across "pockets" where reception falters and drops. Landline obviously not a problem and neither is cable (although I love my DISH and given all the problems Innovative still has with its cable TV, I wouldn't go there).

I know my AT& T cell phone and Sprint before that, didn't work around southside locations/near Antilles school. East end and south side/STT may pick up the BVI cell tower and then their charge is added to your bill (can be very expensive) so good to check your phone to make sure you are getting your signal and not BVI's. I had this happen at my northside location after a storm last yr. took our cell towers offline and I picked up the BVI signal when I made a call without being aware of it. Had to fight it out with AT&T to rescind the charge.

There are other areas for internet that may not work as may need line of sight for internet. Best thing to do is ask landlord for potential rental if there are any issues in recieving cell and internet service as well as contacting service providers to see if they have specific locations where they cannot provide FULL service. Good Luck,