Mobile Data for Short Trip to Toronto, Canada

score:0

Accepted answer

I never followed up with what actually happened.

I gave up on getting any use out of the Canadian SIM that I'd bought.

I called AT&T to get my phone unlocked and was told that I was still under contract and would be charged hundreds of dollars to unlock my phone and tablet.

I was very unhappy to hear this, and decided that my most cost-effective option would be to switch carriers. When I asked about the procedure to switch carriers, I was transferred to the cancellations department; when they heard that I was planning to leave AT&T over access to data in Canada, they offered me a complimentary service upgrade that included one GB/month of Canadian data.

I got to Canada and my phone and tablet worked perfectly; when I blew through the 1 GB of data I luckily noticed the warning text and had enough connectivity left to authorize an overage charge -- otherwise they would have cut me off dead when I hit 1 GB.

I ended up using 1.6 GB of data in 4 days and paid a grand total of $20 for the overage.

But the story doesn't end there. In planning my next trip I unlocked my phone, which was no longer in the contract period; after repeated failures to unlock my tablet I contacted AT&T support who told me that their tablets are never sold locked.

So either the service rep I talked to before my Toronto trip was wrong, or the service rep I talked to later was wrong.

I'm planning to buy or rent a mobile hotspot with a cloud SIM for my next trip; that eliminates any issue over whether my tablet is or is not actually locked.

Upvote:0

When I went to Canada on holiday in 2015 (to watch a couple Women's World Cup games), I used Similicious.

Similicious sent me a SIM card for Rogers™, and I was able to successfully use it. Similicious has now switched carriers to chatr , but 2 GB of data costs $41.99 USD, and it is valid for up to 28 days.

Upvote:1

Theres a service that lets you rent mobile hot spots in Canada, RoamMobile might be up your alley if thats the case. Its not crazy cheap but you could get 200MB of data per day for $6 per day you use it or 500Mb for $10 per day.

If that doesn't work for you, as long as you're in one of the major cities check out the coverage of Wind Mobile might work for you. You should check if your phone/tablet will work on their network as they use the AWS frequencies that T-mobile uses.

Your last option would be to get T-mobile state side and use it in Canada as they allow roaming in Canada at no extra cost. Data isn't 4G speedy but its usable.

Upvote:1

For one other US option, suitable if you were going to be doing this regularly in other countries too, I'll suggest Google Project Fi. Data is $10/GB (or, actually, $0.01/MB) in the US and 135+ other countries, and in addition to the primary data+voice SIM you can have up to 10 data-service-only SIMs at no extra cost.. The service outside the US is often 4G/LTE at a substantial fraction of the speed a local SIM would get (there are no speed caps, unlike T-Mobile) and it works in a lot of places, including Canada. Regular voice calls are $0.20/minute when roaming, though you can instead make them for free over data.

The downsides are that there is a $20/month charge for the account (that pays for unlimited voice and text service in the US) and you need to use a recent Google Nexus phone to activate the service. This doesn't make sense for one short trip to Canada, but is pretty good if you travel regularly.

More post

Search Posts

Related post