Cell Service North Shore of Lake Superior
I'm going to be vacationing along the Northern Shore of Lake Superior from Sault Ste Marie to Thunder Bay and beyond. I will be staying in Provincial Parks. Can anyone describe the cell phone service...
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Just returned to the US after two weeks on the Northern Shore of Lake Superior - Sault Ste Marie to Thunder Bay. While in Sault Ste Marie I checked out three different Canadian Phone companies. Everyone had a different story about coverage and prices for service varied greatly. For example, I was ready to hand over my money to a Virgin Mobile sales clerk who told me with a Virgin sim card in my Verizon Razr Maxx and an add on data plan I would get coverage with no problems. Then the manager came out to help her activate the card, but he said I would not get coverage along the northern shore. I left the store (in a mall) and went down the line to three other service providers. All too confusing with no certainty of service so I did not do anything with them.
I called Verizon and added the $15/mo Canadian plan and they told me since they partnered with Bell I would have service where ever the Bell coverage map indicated it was available. The Northern shore of Lake superior was included. Great, so I also added a Global data roaming package to my Verizon account so I would have data as well.
To make the story short, I had practically "zero" service the entire trip until I reached Thunder Bay. Funny thing, however, was that I could receive calls and occasional text messages but never could I initiate them.
Some people did have service, but they were on TBtel. I talked to a TBtel rep in Thunder Bay just to see what went wrong with my "Bell/Verizon" service. She said while true that Verizon did share Bell service it all changed when TBtel bought the Bell service for the Northern Shore areas. Verizon may piggyback on Bell, but Bell no longer provides service to that area.
That's my story.
I called Verizon and added the $15/mo Canadian plan and they told me since they partnered with Bell I would have service where ever the Bell coverage map indicated it was available. The Northern shore of Lake superior was included. Great, so I also added a Global data roaming package to my Verizon account so I would have data as well.
To make the story short, I had practically "zero" service the entire trip until I reached Thunder Bay. Funny thing, however, was that I could receive calls and occasional text messages but never could I initiate them.
Some people did have service, but they were on TBtel. I talked to a TBtel rep in Thunder Bay just to see what went wrong with my "Bell/Verizon" service. She said while true that Verizon did share Bell service it all changed when TBtel bought the Bell service for the Northern Shore areas. Verizon may piggyback on Bell, but Bell no longer provides service to that area.
That's my story.
