Cell phones in Colombia question

I'm looking to replace the cell phone that the police in cartagena stole from me on my last trip. It was a quad band phone, so I could use it with any SIM card. Comcel seems to be the network of choice for most of my friends in colombia. Buying a quad band really limits my choices.
Will a GSM Tri-Band be just as good? I saw this on the internet:
Colombia
The following networks operate in this country/area:
Colombia Movil SA (Tigo)
GSM 1900
Comunicacion Celular SA Comcel SA
GSM 850/1900
Telefonica Moviles Colombia S.A. (movistar)
GSM 850/1900
So my question: Will a phone that operates on the 1900 frequency, be able to use any of the above SIM cards? Or do you need a phone that has both 850 AND 1900 to operate on Comcel and Movistar?

By Saltador on Mar 30, 2007, 12:05 in Friendly Talkzone.

cedritos says on Mar 31, 2007, 01:24:

Triband will work for Comcel and Movistar only
Quadband will work for any

Ola/Tigo is the cheapest option (especially to other Ola/Tigo phones). Comcel has better coverage. Don't know that much about Movistar.

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ColombianoGringo says on Mar 31, 2007, 14:31:

Triband should work for Comcel Just make sure you have your phone unlocked by your US provider. I have also seen sites on the web that cell unlocked phones.

Peace
CG

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Crazy4Cali says on Jul 31, 2007, 10:47:

We just got into Cali this weekend and the first thing we had to do was get some local cell-phone numbers for our phones. After a little looking around, we found that Movistar had a promotion going where you could get a prepago SIM card for your GSM phone for just $10,000 COP. They also had a promotion going where, if you bought a card for $10,000 COP, they'd credit you with $30,000 COP of time. So, for $40,000COP we got two local numbers and $30,000COP of time.

Normally the airtime is $499COP/min but with this plan, you can call 10 numbers at $199COP/min so, unless you have a lot of amigo/as...

Anyway, neither of our phones are "blocked" (i.e. locked to a particular cell phone company), so we just put in the chips and we were local! all for just $20 USD.

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pedro says on Jul 31, 2007, 10:53:

C4C, you left out the two most beautiful details of the Movistar prepago plan.

1) 79 pesos per minute starting from the third minute of the call.
2) When you recharge with a 50k card, you get a further 50k or 60k of bonus minutes. So those prices effectively just halved.

que nota!

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Crazy4Cali says on Jul 31, 2007, 21:18:

Tienes razon, pedro.

It's a pretty good deal as long as you have a compatible phone. But, even if you have to buy a cell phone for another 60K ($30), it's still not too bad if you're going to be here for a while.

We bought our cards on my wife's cedula. I'm pretty sure you can get them with a passport, if you are from another country, but I can't swear to it.

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