Using a Cell Phone in Canada -- What I Learned

[JudyJB]

I have been researching phones in Canada, so I wanted to share with you what I have learned so far. Not having a phone while traveling in Canada makes life really difficult because you cannot call to get information, make a reservation, or be in contact with family. The two weeks I was in Ontario frustrated me terribly. Not only could I not make calls, but when I got lost trying to find something, I could not look it up on the map or use the internet to get more information. So, since I am hoping to go up into the Vancouver and maybe even Lake Louise area next year, plus make my current trip to the Maritimes easier, I decided to check out what it would take to get a Canadian phone on a pay-as-you-go plan.

The first thing is that Canada is as difficult as the U.S. when it comes to cell phones. When I went to Scotland 8 years ago, I bought a basic UK cell phone for $20 and put in a $15 SIM card that gave me $0.09 local UK minutes and $0.11 International minutes to the U.S. In fact, in three weeks I could not use all the money on the card in spite of calls back to family. There were tons of available SIM cards you could buy from convenience stores and pop in the phone yourself!! You could put almost any SIM card into almost any phone.

So, I have discovered that Canada is about as locked up as the U.S. First, it is hard to buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone. I know because I stopped at a Walmart and the cheapest flip phone in stock was about $60 CND with the cheapest smart phone about $150 CND and it wasn’t very smart, and almost all of them were locked. Being locked means you cannot put an AT&T SIM card into a Verizon phone because Verizon “locked” it before it sold it to you. Good way to have a monopoly and keep your customers whether they want to be kept or not. Only the company that put the lock on the phone can unlock it. This explains the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock.

In 2014, Obama signed into law the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act. This repealed a previous act that made unlocking illegal, so now it is legal to unlock your phone. That does not mean, however, that carriers are unlocking phone.

I have an old iPhone 4, which is workable but is locked. Verizon will not unlock it in spite of the fact that I bought an iPhone5 a year ago and am using that with my Verizon account. Verizon would much rather than I sign up for one of their $2.00 per minute international calling plans. I have been told I have to go to an Apple store and get them to unlock it. I am going to do that as soon as I get back to Ohio or Michigan. I will probably have to pay to get them to do it.

My newest phone is an iPhone 5s. The “s” is important, because iPhone 5s models are unlocked.

So, I went to a shopping mall in Canada and found three cell phone stores. The first (Bell) had very few pay-as-you-go plans but the international calls were very expensive. Plus, “local” calls would be local to the store where I bought the SIM card and since I wasn’t planning on staying in New Brunswick, that was ridiculous. The second (can’t remember name) had none. Third, was Rogers, which had plans and reasonable international calling rates, at least compared to Verizon’s rates. I had them verify my iPhone 5s was unlocked and bought a SIM card that was good for 30 days unless I renewed it. Then, I had to sign up for a small plan. It was expensive, but you can take 25% off for the dollar rate, and it was not too bad. (They removed my Verizon card, and I have it in my purse so I can put it back in when I return to the U.S.) Here is what I spent and what I got:

• SIM card = $10 CDN
• Monthly service fee for $20.75 CDN that included
o Unlimited Canadian text, picture, and video messages
o Unlimited international text messages
o Unlimited weekend local calls (local calls are local to anywhere you are at the time you make the call!!)
o 25 cents a minute local anytime calls
• Then I added a data plan which gave me 1 Gig for $30 CDN
• That all resulted in a $10 CDN bonus that will pay for 50 cents a minute international calls and 25 cents a minute anytime local calls above.

Total with tax was $67.79 CDN, which is only $51.27 U.S. Yes, it is expensive for only three weeks of travel, but already it has saved me a lot of effort in making reservations and looking things up. I don’t have to hike to the office to get information anymore, or drive someplace, not knowing whether it is open or not. I have not made international calls, but I have been texting my kids and one friend.

Now, what I DID NOT do, and should have done, was check about coverage. Like the U.S., some Canadian cell companies have better coverage in some areas in Canada. So second and third nights I had the phone set up there was no service!

And by the way, I still have that UK phone if anyone ever wants to borrow it. It is a very plain flip phone but it comes with a car charger and a UK plug for recharging. All you have to do is put in a new SIM card and it will work anywhere in the UK.

[Bethers]

I have AT&T. They have various international plans but one I can add is Canada and/or Mexico with 80 minutes for $30/month, with more minutes at a fee. I've never bothered when traveling there, but have considered it. They require adding it for a minimum of a month, only, so easy enough.

[chalet05]

Thanks for the info, Judy. 3 years ago I could just pay $20 a month to Verizon to have Canada coverage. I was just wanting voice so not sure what data would have been. This is a reminder to check it out if we do Canada next summer.

[Liz]

I paid for an international/global plan with Verizon. It works great....just read carefully and make sure you pick the right plan that meets your needs.