T-Mobile USA prepaid now roams on Bell in Canada
 

The last few days, I've had my old iPhone turned on with my T-Mobile SIM in it. As always, the SIM registers on Rogers here in Regina, Saskatchewan...

... until Tuesday. And it was on "BELL"! (We don't actually have native Bell coverage here but SaskTel broadcasts Bell's and Telus' ID code on their towers as well as their own.)

An outgoing test call works.

This is terrific news for Canadians who want very occasional service in Canada, or need a complement to Rogers, as well as US (and other) users of T-Mobile prepaid who come to visit Canada.

Bell's network is all 3G so you'll need a properly equipped phone, supporting both the 850 and 1900 MHz bands to get full service.

Not surprising. Bell and other telcos are never ones to turn down roaming revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if Telus at some point offers roaming. I believe Wind offers roaming as well for T-Mobile. T-Mobile 3G is the same as is used for Wind.

Here in BC, my US T-Mobile (prepaid) roams on Rogers, both GSM and 3G, but not (yet) on Telus. I just checked it again.

So this is a case where the shared Bell/Telus/Sasktel 3G network has different roaming behaviour in different areas.

I can confirm the Wind roaming, at least in the greater Toronto area. I forgot my iPhone at my hotel and used my T-Mobile Nokia Nuron on Wind to call the hotel to arrange to ship it home (I was already in the secure area at Pearson airport and I'd have missed my flight if I left to get the phone back).

It might matter that Telus built the network in BC (Bell uses it but it's not theirs). Interesting.

SaskTel built their own network but they have a very close working relationship with Bell. In fact, SaskTel sources all their phones through Bell. (This created some interesting tension with Apple because SaskTel doesn't have enough customers for Apple to service them directly, but they had apparently never serviced a cellular carrier as a third party through another one before. There was a long delay before SaskTel was able to offer the iPhone on its new HSPA network.)

Try again from time to time and see what happens.

If you do a network search do you see Bell listed? Here in Saskatchewan, if in range of SaskTel's UMTS service you will see the network codes for SaskTel, Bell and Telus.

On a UMTS manual network search with the T-mobile sim, I only see Rogers (which works), and CAN 880 (which doesn't accept registration).

Here I mostly use eKit on CAN 880 (which gives it's name as Telus after registering).

Rob

Looks like you'll have to wait for T-Mobile to have a formal roaming agreement with Telus, then, unfortunately.

In Ontario the Bell sites advertise both the Bell and Telus IDs - I figured the same would be true in BC for Telus sites but apparently not.