Cellphone choices

[gkehoe]

Going from Canada to US. What is the common way to. maintain cell service?
Change to a (my prorvider) Roger's Canada/US plan or acquire a US provider SIM card?

[Marcm157]

I run a bus company that does frequent trips to Canada. All our phones are Canada capable. I all I need to do is contact our carrier (Verizon and T Mobile) and advise them we are traveling to Canada and they alter our current rate plans to ensure service works. Have you tried contacting your carrier?

[TxLoser]

I travel quite a bit. I have ATT here in the states. When I get to Canada it picks up the rogers network. I’m sure the reverse is possible as well. Mexico, Caribbean, and even Central America I don’t get any extra charges but Bahamas and Canada it’ll charge me. I’m sure there’s an option where I could get Canada included and you probably have an option where you could get the US included for an additional cost and then cancel it when your travels end. Easier than changing providers or swapping SIM cards around. Also, if there’s WiFi anywhere you go, you could use the WiFi calling feature free of charge which many phones have.

[RogerR]

T-Mobile works in Canada, no extra charge so I would assume that yours would work iin US. If you are staying in US for months you may either have to pay extra to your network or temporarily join T-Mobile. T-Mobile is month to month, no contract and at 70US it may be cheaper if you can pause or cancel your Canadian carrier.
T_Mobile also gives some hotspot data which is nice while traveling, amount of GB is based on plan.

[colby]

Originally Posted by gkehoe

Going from Canada to US. What is the common way to. maintain cell service?
Change to a (my prorvider) Roger's Canada/US plan or acquire a US provider SIM card?

Rogers Roam Like Home is good for a limited stay - 12/day each and every day that you roam. That's around $240 + taxes for a month in the US (20 day maximum in any given month). Rogers has Canada/US plans (https://www.rogers.com/plans#Can+US) that might be an option.

Depending on your phone, it may take a second SIM or eSIM which you could put in from a US carrier or third-party. Depending on your calling plan (calls and text) a data-only eSIM may work. You just set your primary line to not roam and then the data on the eSIM would be used.

[CAG]

My Verizon plan needs no prompting when traveling to Canada or Mexico. All covered by my plan although I am careful about Mexico because some funny things happen with their charges.



Travel to most all other countries in the world take a simple change in the phone parameters and ticking a box on my On-Line account to activate that service. As long as I am on WiFi in other countries my phone and data charges remain the same, zip, they are covered in the plan. If I go off WiFi I am charge $10 per 24 hrs for anything used.



If you travel much it pays to look over your plan and change if necessary.

[Timber]

We are looking at different plans as well. I came across Jethro Mobile last night ( I know wierd name ) they compare themselfs to Roam mobilty which we used before they closed because of Covid. I haven't look in to them much so I am not saying its good or not good, but you can have a look. https://www.jethroshop.ca/

[RogerR]

Assuming you are 55+ you can bring your Canadian phone over to T-mobile and get a plan for 2 phones for $70 a month. Month to month so no contract to lock you in if you don't buy a phone. As a T mobile customer they now have a $30 a month internet over 5G device (no rental fee!), also, month to month, no contract.

If you know a Tmobile customer they can refer you and the referring person gets a little discount for a month. You also get free netflix while you are a customer.

[colby]

Here's an example of the eSIM - https://esim.holafly.com/esim-usa/

90 days, $99 for unlimited data. If you have a recent iPhone, it will take the eSIM and you can use that for all of your data. No changing your number, and you can use VOIP applications like WhatsApp, iMessage (for iPhones), etc. by shutting off roaming on the Rogers SIM and as long as you don't make a call, send a regular text, etc., you are all good.

[Seann45]

I travel South every winter for the winter... and lately I have found that Metro by T-Mobile offers the best rate and service. they even let you tether your phone, Verizon wont let you do that on a month to month you need to be on contract.

[ltnunes]

Best thing to do is contact your carrier and ask them.

[ptblue]

Stateside here, and my Att plan includes Canada.

Check with Rogers… a lot of times the carrier has a short term plan for traveling across borders

[RoadrunnerII]

Most of the replies are coming from US citizens which don't work for us Canucks
As Canadians our cell providers stick to too us badly if we take our phone to another country
Here is our experience as Canadians travelling as snowbirds to the USA
You have 3 options
Addon plan to your Canadian plan for USA roaming long distance

Buy a cheap phone and add a USA plan to it while in the USA

IF your Canadian phone is supported ie 5G capable and does not use 3G you can buy a simm and buy a USA pay as you go plan

We have done option 1 and 2 and are trying option 3 this year

We did the dual simm buy a USA simm and add to our Canadian phone BUT the phone used 3G for the security handshake. That ended last winter for us. ATT shutdown 3G support Our 2 year old phones did not work at all.

So we bought a cheap phone a Samsung A12 with USA Canada calling plan last year $118 out the door with 1 month unlimited USA Canada calling and data plan
Downside multiply phones to cart around so you knew when you have a cdn phone voice mail to retrieve and make sure you did it on the USA phone plan or it cost you more again.
It was Painful!

This year we have new phones (Samsung S21Fe 5g) phones thru TELUS
We can switch plans while we are gone to a: Canada /USA plan with unlimited calling, texting and data. The plan costs $15 more per month
Our phone and number does not change
NO upcharges No roaming No long distance and no charges to others calling you or texting you
Now the bad news......
Its going to be $75.00 per month per phone versus the Canada only unlimited at $60.00. Included is the cost of the new phone over a two your contract.
Now those are the prices thru our son's company corporate employee plan. This is allowed and not some sideways method of cheating the cell phone carriers. He can have up to 6 phones on his account. We just pay our son and he pays the bill. Easy peasy!
You will be even more per month on an individual plan but versus buying a phone plus the USA Canada pay as you go plans with data are about $50 per month US Dollars

Talk to Rogers and if you don't like the answer and are not locked in a long-term contract you can walk over to Telus and check it out
Koodo is a subset of Telus but does not offer a USA plan Just a roaming plan at $11.00 per day. That gets expensive quickly