In late 1998 and early 1999, many of the access codes needed to use public and private telephones in México were updated. As of January 15, 1999, the following codes should be valid on public and private telephones throughout the national TelMex (Teléfonos de México) network.

Note: 2004/05 - cell phones now have special area codes and different dialing rules. Ask the provider.

020 domestic operator
040 directory information (Spanish only in most cases but worth a try if you speak only English)
090 international operator (English or other languages)

Dialing directly to the U.S.A:
[001 + area-code + 7 digit number]

Dialing domestic long-distance numbers directly:
[01 + area-code + number] (all area codes will soon be 3 digit)

Dialing other countries direct (other than the U.S.):
[00# + number as required] # is the universal country code

Dialing 800 numbers:

[01 + 800 + 7 digit #] for domestic Mexican 800 #'s

[00 + 1 + 880 + 7 digit #] for calling a U.S. number that begins with 800.
[00 + 1 + 881 + 7 digit #] for calling a U.S. number that begins with 888.
(You simply drop the U.S. 800 portion and replace it with the Mexican prefix. These only work if the U.S. customer subscribes to international access service.)

To call a Mexican 800 # from the U.S., dial [1 + 800 + 800 + 7 digit Mexico #]
(Works only if the Mexican customer subscribes to international access service.)

To dial a local number simply insert your Ladatel smart card and dial the local seven digit number.

Smart-cards may be purchased almost everywhere. They are available in even  denominations of pesos. You should see this, or a similar, logo:

An experience with & criticism of Southwestern Bell, Sprint and TelMex:

This information was gained by personal experience on the Sunday morning of the weekend the new phone codes went into effect. My wife (who is Mexican and has used the public phones regularly for years) and I were trying to access our long-distance calling-card service to call the U.S. Nothing worked. The numbers we had called for years, the operator access numbers we knew and the numbers printed on our Southwestern Bell provided long-distance travel cards did not work.

The people around us in the large supermarket knew little about the matter,  no notices were placed near the phones or in the area where the smart-cards were sold and no error recordings were delivered by TelMex. After our hour-long ordeal, we found out that the changes had been publicized widely for the previous two months but, having been in the U.S. during the entire holiday season, we heard nothing. After much button pushing, we finally accessed an operator for international long-distance who informed us of some of the new codes.

The U.S. companies deserving criticism in this matter are: Sprint and Southwestern Bell.

Sprint is a major long-distance partner of TelMex and carries SWB's calling-card long-distance. Southwestern Bell parent company owns one-third of TelMex.

My SWB calling card had the in-Mexico 800 access number (which I had used before) on it with the old code (01+800+#) and each time I entered the number the phone would display that it was an invalid number before I got to the last few digits. Eventually, I paid for an expensive international call to the "customer service" number on my phone card to attempt to solve the problem.

The "customer service" representative who answered was a Sprint employee. After explaining my problem, she kept telling me that all 800 numbers don't work from other countries - something that I knew and that was irrelevant to my situation. She could not accept the fact that I was in Mexico and was calling a Mexican 800 number. In frustration, I read her the card: "From Mexico Dial 01-800-123-0234; From Canada Dial 1-800-600-2355; Customer Service, In the U.S. and Canada, dial 1-888-481-0381. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call collect 314-505-2026." I couldn't call collect because the code for an operator assisted international call had changed. Eventually, she curtly said, "I'll transfer you to a Southwestern Bell rep." I held until my smart-card ran out of money and then gave up on that avenue.

Both of these companies should have had full knowledge of how to place calls in Mexico and should have been able to help immediately.

These are the "why's" of this experience that I thought of later in the day:

• When Mexico's public phones are far superior to U.S. public phones (with multiple language instruction displays, smart cards and are remote software-update capable), why are the basic codes needed to place any type of call (similar to our 1+ code) not included in multi-language instruction texts?
• Why would TelMex not provide one recording listing the new codes when a user tried to use an old code?
• Why did Southwestern Bell not notify it's international long-distance card holders of the changes? The parent firm, SBC, owns one-third of TelMex and prints the codes on the back of its U.S. long-distance cards.
• Why was the Sprint rep. absolutely unaware of other-country toll-free access numbers to their long-distance service?
• Why does TelMex not print the access codes on the Lada smart-cards along with the art, advertisements and other information that shows up on them?

And before we lay it off on TelMex being a Mexican company, remember that the worst offenders were US firms.

Robert Pratt