Cell phone minutes in Nicaragua are all prepaid. Minutes are literally sold everywhere in public.

People load their cellphones when they can. Sometimes as little as $1 at a time. They use minutes sparingly. If they have the chance to save 50 cents, they will. If that means ducking into a cyber cafe to make a cheaper international call, they will. Possibly their phone does not have any minutes left on it. This is common, the phones can still receive calls even if there are no minutes. Rather than pay the relatively exhorbident cost of cell phone international calling, they might opt to have that 30 minute call to the cousin in Colombia in a cyber.

There is no concept of cell phone service on or off or a monthly bill.

And there are Genuine Apple iPhones in Nicaragua. They buy them modified from China. The phones have been modified to hold dual sim cards. This way they can have two numbers and can buy minutes from both the major vendors, Claro and Movistar. I guess they just use them as cell phones and PDAs, no Internet access or iPhone specific features.

Hope this information is interesting to someone.