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3rdparty
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17 years ago @ Jay Goldman - Travelling to the US w... · 0 replies · +2 points
Great post Jay. I didn't know about Rogers' US Data add-on - it IS well hidden. Hope to only have to add to my iPhone it if the wireless really chokes out at SXSW. Also great to know that receiving SMS (twitter notifications) is free, although Rogers customers still can't update twitter via SMS even in the US, correct?
I recently bought a prepaid Tracfone for use in the US. It has a few advantages over the T-Mobile prepaid SIM:
http://tracfonetips.googlepages.com/tracfonenokia...
1) Phones can be bought for cheap on ebay or at Walmart etc - I went with a CDMA Nokia 2126i which can be re-activated remotely if you let your account/minutes lapse (whereas a GSM phone with a SIM card requires them to mail you a new SIM card - which they won't do to Canada)
2) Tracfone rates can be quite reasonable if you buy a maximum minutes card that lasts for 365 days and doubles any minute purchases within the year (Walgreens, Walmart, are among places that sell the cards). I believe I'm paying $0.10/min for all calls to/from US/Canada
3) While it won't do data, sent/received text messages are billed at approx half a 'credit' (minute) each, which works out to about $0.05 per text if you buy enough minutes
4) Here is the kicker: Tracfone allows you to assign up to 3 'foreign' numbers to your primary line. Although they are scarce, I was able to secure a local Toronto 647 number which rings through to the phone when in the US. This is a huge feature if you receive a lot of calls from Canada, as it saves the caller any long distance, plus you can just forward your Toronto cell to this local number, and receive calls without any additional long-distance / roaming fees (over and above the prepaid minutes)
Calls back to Canada are also billed at the same rate as the US, which I don't believe is the case with the T-Mobile prepaid SIMs.
It's times like this that I miss the Blackberry over the iPhone - since the BB is such a data miser, and you can easily control the amount of data you are sending/receiving (especially by turning off HTML email), and using BB Messenger rather than SMS.
I recently bought a prepaid Tracfone for use in the US. It has a few advantages over the T-Mobile prepaid SIM:
http://tracfonetips.googlepages.com/tracfonenokia...
1) Phones can be bought for cheap on ebay or at Walmart etc - I went with a CDMA Nokia 2126i which can be re-activated remotely if you let your account/minutes lapse (whereas a GSM phone with a SIM card requires them to mail you a new SIM card - which they won't do to Canada)
2) Tracfone rates can be quite reasonable if you buy a maximum minutes card that lasts for 365 days and doubles any minute purchases within the year (Walgreens, Walmart, are among places that sell the cards). I believe I'm paying $0.10/min for all calls to/from US/Canada
3) While it won't do data, sent/received text messages are billed at approx half a 'credit' (minute) each, which works out to about $0.05 per text if you buy enough minutes
4) Here is the kicker: Tracfone allows you to assign up to 3 'foreign' numbers to your primary line. Although they are scarce, I was able to secure a local Toronto 647 number which rings through to the phone when in the US. This is a huge feature if you receive a lot of calls from Canada, as it saves the caller any long distance, plus you can just forward your Toronto cell to this local number, and receive calls without any additional long-distance / roaming fees (over and above the prepaid minutes)
Calls back to Canada are also billed at the same rate as the US, which I don't believe is the case with the T-Mobile prepaid SIMs.
It's times like this that I miss the Blackberry over the iPhone - since the BB is such a data miser, and you can easily control the amount of data you are sending/receiving (especially by turning off HTML email), and using BB Messenger rather than SMS.
Invention