US & Canada Cell Service

[sapest]

Snowbirds - how do you handle your mobile voice service? We are planning to be 6 months in the US & 6 months in Canada. I am interested in how others have dealt with this? One carrier/one number or 2 carriers & 2 numbers? Many thx for your thoughts & solutions.
-Steve

[mhs4771]

I think it could be one service, but it would have to have a plan that covered both US and Canada. Our current Verizon plan does not include Canada. We can still use our phones while there, but we would pay a pretty high roaming fee, wouldn't want to talk too long.

[hookman]

We have a TracFone which is a pay and talk system which is available from Walmart and several other stores and it works well as it has a set rate for several countries and the USA.

[sapest]

There are certainly plans that cover both countries. None are inexpensive, at least not ones I have found so far. I am hoping to minimize or eliminate roaming fees. So far it seems cheaper to have a US provider & add Canada, rather than the other way round. But that means every call from a Canadian to me is a long distance call.
-Steve

[drsmart]

We have a Telus cell for Canada and pick up a Net10 package at the first Walmart when we cross into the U.S. Tracfone is another package that is similar. If you do a little checking on line, there are packages that include the cell phone and a minutes card. When you go to activate the phone, use the Zip code for the area you'll be staying at. You'll get a number that is local to that area. Net10 also provides a Canadian telephone number for friends and family to call to get hold of you.

Dave

[helmick]

We live in the US and spend time in Canada, we also make a lot of call from the US to Canada.
We have Verizon with the Canada plan, it has worked very well for us.

[Wiarton William]

We have a TRACFONE that we bought at walmart.. $49.00 for 220 minutes and 6 months service...IF we wanted to call back to Canada while away we have to dial a supplied 1-800 # and then the telephone number of whoever we are calling.. seems as though it may be a little more work to do it...once you do it they will supply you with 1-800#'s to give your freinds in Canada so they will be able to call you.. again dial the 1-800# plus your number... its cheap but apparently the service can be spotty and they say that up front..

[JudeM]

We got the Net10 phone at Walmart. 10 cents a minute even to call Canada. There's a number you can give people back home to call so they don't have to pay long distance too. We have had pretty good coverage so far. There seems to be some sort of cell service war going on between Canada and US right now. Texting now incurs a roaming plus per use charge with Telus.

[sapest]

Thx to all for your comments. My experience with MVNO's like Net10 have not been great when outside metro area's. Keep those comments coming!
-Steve

[drsmart]

NET10 typically uses the AT&T Mobility or T-Mobile networks. Our experience as far as coverage the last two years we've been traveling the U.S. has been good. Considering the cost compared to other options, we'll use it again on our next trip. Calling Canada from the U.S. was costing an extra 5 cents a minute the last time we used it. That being 15 cents a minute total.
One thing I'm not happy about, Telus used to allow us to enable a vacation mode while we were away and charge very little to retain our cell number. They've eliminated that service and we have to pay the regular monthly rate even though we're not using it. Guess they were loosing too much revenue with snowbirds.

[brooksider]

When in the US we use Trac Phone. If you are running a GM you can also use On Star which we also use.
Joe

[8e3k0]

We've used Net 10 for the last 2 years and went to a tracfone this year simply because availabilty of phone selection and service seemed to be more plentiful with Tracfone than Net 10. Also we are able to keep our phone number and carry both days and minutes our during the time we are back in Canada. Tracfone has a "double the minutes and days" with some cards and can reduce your per minute cost down to 6 to 7 cents per minute!!