Telecel MX - free roaming option in USA and Canada

[RTuesday]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

What happened is that AT&T bought the Mexican carrier Iusacell, which is now "AT&T Mexico".

AT&T Mexico (formed from both IUSACell and Nextel Mexico) still has a long way to go to get decent coverage (well, doesn't cover anywhere I travel). But at least they're expanding the network as LTE-first, so in a few years it'll be a decent competitor.

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

This sort of forced Telecel to align with T-Mobile (US) to create a big North American free roaming zone. Depending on one's plan, T-Mobile customers now have free roaming in Canada and Mexico. The same is true for participating carriers in those countries.

Apart from the long-established AT&T Go Phone, which costs the same in Mexico as the US, I don't think any US or Canadian carrier yet offers roaming in all three countries for pay-as-you-go, like Telcel. T-Mobile only offers the roaming with monthly plans (prepaid or postpaid) that start at $50. The per-minute or par-day prepaid on T-Mobile doesn't have the free roaming.

I don't think any carrier in Canada yet offers same-price/free roaming in US or Mexico without special plans or fees, whether prepaid or postpaid (Rogers "Roam like home" is $5/day US, $10/day Mexico, Europe).