Canadians using cell phone in USA

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Lisa

Active member
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Posts
32
What do you do for a cell phone plan when traveling in the US?  I usually add a plan to my existing Canadian plan (we have Virgin and Telus) but it is quite limited on data allowed or gets quite expensive.  Are there better options if purchasing a plan directly from a US provider?
 
We use a pay as you go phone from TracFone or ATT .... but we do not need or use data on a smart phone. Data plans are available from either though.

ATT has a new 20$ a month unlimited plan that has been discussed at length here in ongoing thread, you might consider that. One Canadian (BobT) has looked into that for his use. (Found near the end of the thread.) I will be checking it out next November when we make our annual sojourn to the south.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,103863.0.html
 
I use SIM cards when I go out of the US.  Isn't there a SIM card for Canadians to use in the US in an unlocked phone? AT&T passport plans are exhorbitant when I travel.
 
JoelP said:
I use SIM cards when I go out of the US.  Isn't there a SIM card for Canadians to use in the US in an unlocked phone? AT&T passport plans are exhorbitant when I travel.

In our early travels in the USA, we used an unlocked phone and a SIM card from ATT  which, at that time, was free or could be bought at a reasonable price on EBay for pay as you go service. (Our phones do not have a data option or do we have any need for that.)
 
    We too have had a Tracfone for over a dozen years, and while we could buy date for our phone, we never did.  However, our daughter & SIL upgraded when he got a new iPhone for work, and we inherited an iPhone and we considered getting 2 separate plans, which would require switching SIM cards, to which DW objected, so we went with a relatively new Bell Mobility plan which give us unlimited phone and texting, and 3 gigs of data.  I am told that since Bell introduced the plan, competitors have come out with similar plan.  It is slightly more expensive than the 2 separate plans at $100 CDN monthly, but not break the bank and you never run into a problem when travelling along the border since it doesn't matter which tower the phone picks up.  Oh, and since it was an unlocked phone, the plan is monthly if we are not happy or a better plan comes along.

Ed
 
When we went for a month last winter, I could get 1  gb of data from bell for 50 dollars, or 2 gb for 80 dollars. One gb was not quite enough, even though I did most of our planning at night on the campground wifi. We made no advanced reservations and only called ahead the day we would be arriving once we knew how far we would be. For this reason I needed data on my phone. We had a gps for most of the navigation, but I still used the phone in some situations. I would consider this price quite expensive, but I didnt want to end up with a huge mystery bill once I got home to Ontario.
 
We just suck it up and pay Rogers $5/day/phone to get our plan (unlimited voice, 8GB data and unlimited text) extended to the US. We do this for 2 of our 3 mobiles (>> $10/day) and use a personal hotspot for the other to access the Internet....we could theoretically get away with 1 phone but we aren't always together. We only spend 5 or so days in the US at a time so it works out to be a reasonable deal. I believe there is a monthly maximum per phone.
 
Thank you for all your replies. I'm going to look into all the suggestions.
 
Another option is doing a pre-paid phone plan for x amount of time, but it sounds like the Canadian suggestions for mobile companies sound better than that. Just an option if it comes to it. They're usually anywhere from $10-40
 
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