Best option for travelling to Canada?
 

Hi all.

We've just booked a 10-day trip to Canada (Toronto) in May and I wondered if anyone here has had any experiences of using a pre-paid SIM there?

I'm not too worried about obtaining the SIM since there appear to be a number of people on ebay selling them, but my main questions would be:

1/ Which would be the better option (Fido/Rogers)
2/ What would coverage be like on 1900-only given that I have only tri-band phones and do not really want to buy a quad-band for the relatively short time I'll be there.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

my previous response never got posted... do here goes again:
I have been with Fido since 1998: they started out with excellent 1900 coverage in urban areas but with limited rural coverage, and they were bought out by Rogers a couple of years ago. Rogers implemented mostly 850 coverage extending to rural areas.
Both networks have now pretty much been merged, but it would be fair to assume that 1900 coverage in urban areas is still good with Fido. An excellent source of information can be found at www.howardforums.com in the Fido or Rogers forums.
Good luck...

I'd check the prepaid packages for each. For short-term use, Fido has lower rates with very short expiries. For infrequent use, Rogers has an option to have a one-year expiry. Another option if you want long expiry is 7-11's SpeakOut Wireless which uses the Rogers network. See the forum at howardforums.com to learn about SpeakOut.

As for phone, you're best to have 850 and 1900, but you'll be okay with 1900. You're most likely to lose signal on 1900 when you're inside buildings that don't have their own picocells. (The Rogers Centre, e.g., not shockingly, has its own sites so you get full signal just about everywhere.)

The only place I had borderline signal was just east of Guelph, and that's quite a ways out of Toronto (but that was with a quad-band, mind).

Every Rogers tower supports at least 1900 and every outdoor tower (to my knowledge) supports 850 also, so the network is pretty comprehensive.

You pay for incoming calls here so get a number local to where you will be most of the time, or you will incur long distance charges as well as airtime when you get inbound calls. In Toronto, an area code 416 or 647 number (+1 416 or +1 647) will be local.

Another option is to use the American T-Mobile. The rates in Canada are fairly expensive (about 60 cents US per minute) but reasonable compared to what you'll likely pay with your own UK provider, and the rates in the US are exceptionally good. It's one of the cheapest prepaid services to keep going, so you can avoid losing your paid-up time - once you have put $100 in time into it, any top-up will give you a one-year expiry.

Thanks very much for such a comprehensive reply, PhotoJim.

The T-Mobile US idea is an intriguing one especially with such a long validity period and I would consider that were I to know for certain that I was also to visit the USA. Alas this trip to Toronto is instead of (rather than as well as) San Francisco so I think I'd be better off with a Canadian SIM.

I think we'll spent most of our time in the city; I don't want to go to the expense of buying a quad-band phone so hopefully I'll be ok solely on 1900MHZ.

If coverage is essentially the same I suppose it's just pricing plans that are the differentiator and they look much of a muchness.

Can you recommend any good calling cards that I could use whilst in Canada?

I'm actually not that familiar with calling cards, but they are available at just about every little convenience store here, plus Wal-Mart and other department stores. Getting a rate below 5 cents a minute to call the UK should be easy.

You'll be okay enough with GSM 1900. If you really want to be a geek, get an unlocked dual- or quad-band phone that supports 850 and 1900 (or more). You can get them here really cheaply. The Nokia 6590i is a nice little candybar phone that people more or less give away used now, and it's dual band. Just make sure it's unlocked, or locked to Rogers so that you can use a Rogers or SpeakOut Wireless SIM.

SpeakOut seems to be the best prepaid GSM plan here right now. It's 20 cents Canadian a minute and has (I think) a one-year expiry (it's at least 180 days). Long distance is additional.

As an aside, I just want to make sure you know that inbound calling is different here than in the UK. Mobile phone numbers are regional numbers just like landline numbers are, and in fact are basicaly indistinguishable. The mobile phone owner pays for inbound calls (unless he has an unlimited plan). This also means that your friends in the UK can call you in Canada for the same rate they can call a landline, since the call is processed the same way. So depending on how you want to do your calling back home, it may be most efficient to have them call you. (You could send an SMS or make a one-minute call there to tell them to call.)

By the way I may be in Toronto in May (I go once a year to catch some Blue Jays baseball) so stay in touch if you want an excuse to have a pint. :)

Thanks very much for your help, PhotoJim. Yes, I'm aware of the incoming call charges in North America - it seems bizarre to most of us in this part of the world, but there we are...

I've had a quick look at Speakout but it seems info is at a premium and I can't see anywhere selling SIM-only.

In ref to the calling cards, do you know whether either Rogers or Fido charge for calling toll-free numbers?

That would be cool!

It is a little bizarre but it has its advantages. I'm going to the UK in September and got a couple of O2 SIMs. The lowest rate I can find to forward my calls from Canada to the UK is about 30 cents a minute. If you guys had the same method for inbound calling that we have, it'd cost me 5 cents a minute for the forward and (after my first 3 minutes of airtime of the day) 5p a minute on the prepaid phone, which is about half the price.

Oh well. It's still not bad.

As for toll-free numbers, Canadian providers don't differentiate between local and toll-free numbers. The rate to call them is precisely the same. That having been said, any good calling card is going to have a local Toronto number for you to call. One in four Canadians lives in the local calling radius of Toronto.

I pay $0.17 a minute to forward to UK -- www.callcentric.com

Most Canadian prepaids charge a surcharge to call outside the region you are in, e.g. if you are in Montreal and want to call Toronto, you typically pay CN$0.10 a minute to make that call. HOWEVER, many plans do not surcharge beyond that to call the US. E.g. if you are in Montreal it costs the same to call either Toronto or Los Angeles.

That said, look at: AllFreeCalls.net. Free calls to the UK if you call their US number -- +1 712-858-8094.

Stu I have troed the allfreecalls and it does not call countries (Eg Greece, cyprus) that are even in their list......

Thanks for that information, Stu. I will certainly take a better look at both of those sites. It would seem that Rogers pre-pay loads quite a bit on to call USA from Canada although Fido does as you suggest i.e. treats USA and long distance Canada the same ($0.20CAD + airtime). I suppose it would be a question of comparing this to calling card rates.

I must say though, that my recent experiences with Voicestick have made me lose faith in these types of services. Over Christmas I signed up with them and was never able to make any successful calls to either Estonia (landline and cellular) or Mexico. Indeed they have billed me for a call (admittedly only 1 minute) even though it never connected.

I've e-mailed them twice with no response :(

Agree, Prion. I signed up with Voicestick and have been unable to make successful calls to two different countries (landline and cellular). In fact test calls to UK numbers have worked but that's not much use considering I'm already within the UK!

As people have previously mentioned, Fido was bought out by Rogers so they have essentially the same network. If you don't go into seriously rural Canada or off the major highways, you should have full access to all services.

I'm not sure if Rogers has changed their rates but Fido has made changes to their packages so that you can have free incoming calls for $1 a day, a flat rate of 15 cents per minute for all calls, or a cheaper rate for evening calls but expensive during peak hours. Just choose what seems best for you. Quite honestly, if you're planning on calling home, don't go with the cheap evening rate because it makes no sense with the time difference.

As for long distance phone cards, try to go with phone cards offered by the major phone companies. ie. go with Bell, Telus or AT&T. You can buy discount phone cards everywhere (convenience stores, lotto kiosks, etc) but the quality of the phone line can be absolutely rotten with the discount phone cards plus there are often hidden fees, like a $1.99 charge for the first minute. Bell stores should sell the cards and the stores are in every major shopping centre.

One thing to watch for with the long distance cards is that they sometimes charge more for a call to an overseas mobile phone vs an overseas land line. My best friend lives in London and I call her regularly. If I call her mobile with a Telus long distance card, it can cost anywhere from 33 to 50 cents a minute (different rates depending if I'm using a $5, $10, or $20 card). However if I call her land line, it's only 8 cents a minute. The one consistent thing about just using Fido to dial internationally is that it's a flat rate regardless of land or mobile phone number. However, Fido used to prohibit international calling on their pay as you go plans and they still might do it.

According to the Fido website, they now allow international long distance on their prepaid plans. There is a prepaid international long distance calculator on the long distance portion of the Fido website. Calls to USA are 30 cents a minutes (I can confirm this from personal use) and calls to the UK are 35 cents a minute...plus the airtime cost. A quality prepaid long distance calling card would be considerably less than this, but if only a small volume of calls, it may be worth it for the convenience of direct dial long distance.

also dont foget the little mvno http://retail.petro-canada.ca/en/mobility/2303.aspx

the canuk equiv of BP or esso, uhh they don't do sim only kits but for a cheap nokia for $75.-- thats not bad! anyhow have fun in canadaland and remember in may its also moose shoving season eh!

Any major convenience store like 7-Eleven or Macs should have pre-paid packages with phone. Just be careful which service you buy since a lot of them will be with on non-GSM providers and you'll likely be stuck with a phone that you can't use when you go home vs purchasing a GSM phone that you can have unlocked. Your best bet really is to have your phone unlocked before you come and to try to purchase a Rogers or Fido card on Ebay before you leave. While you can buy the sim card at any Rogers or Fido dealer in Canada, the ones on Ebay often give you bonus airtime. To get the free airtime from a dealer, you need to purchase a phone before they give it to you. Just make sure you're dealing with a good seller on Ebay and that you give it at least two to three weeks for shipping.

If you are looking to buy a new GSM phone that you can have unlocked, I know a few independent Fido dealers will unlock it for you but you lose any warranty protection the moment they unlock it. The last Fido dealer I purchased the phone from told me to find a little techie shop to unlock it for me because if they did it for me, the warranty was void but if I had someone else do it, then I still had full protection.

well petro canada is a gsm service!

Yup but if someone is staying in an area where there is no Petro Canada, there are other plenty of other options out there. GSM phone kits can be purchased at a whole variety of Fido and Rogers retailers including the convenience stores 7-Eleven and Macs, major drug stores like London Drugs, electronics stores like Future Shop and Best Buy, or in plenty of places in shopping centres. Just go to the Fido and Rogers website and do a dealer locator search.

A lot of these places will sell prepaid kits by Telus, Bell, Virgin Mobile, Solo Mobile, President's Choice, or some places even have their own house brands. It's just a matter of looking for Fido or Rogers if you want the GSM service.

It's also a matter of whether people want to actually purchase a brand new phone here or pay the charge to get it unlocked at home and just buy a SIM card that has airtime included with it on Ebay. Buying it on Ebay gives you the luxury of knowing what your phone number is before you leave. I travel to Europe at least twice a year and to the US at least twice a year and it's silly for me to buy a new phone in each country I'm in. The only time that I did buy a phone while travelling was when I bought a new phone in Hong Kong that it took over a year for the technology to reach North America.

Getting your phone unlocked for a minimal fee at home is still cheaper than paying $75 to $150 plus tax for a Fido or Rogers pay as you go package with phones that the company is trying to phase out. I had my new Fido Sony Ericsson unlocked in London for 5 quid (it costs $40 to get it done in my Canadian city). Plus buying a new phone in Canada isn't worth it if you're looking for the latest models... Canada is at least 6 months behind Europe for phone models and phones are just cheaper in Europe vs North America. You can buy a cheapo phone and sim card in Canada but you'll still have to get it unlocked if you want to use it at home and it'll be an old model that Fido and Rogers are trying to phase out.

Are there any "acount saver" options for Fido or any of the MVNOs as I believe there are for Rogers, ie, top up with $100 and get a year's validity? What's the best deal in terms of account validity for someone who visits Canada occasionally?

7-Eleven SpeakOUT gives a 365 day expiration on all their refills. They do however deduct $0.99/month from your account to cover regulatory and lnp fees.

PetroCanada gives 180 days with the same monthly fee.

Thanks, VladS. And are they easy to top up from outside Canada?