I'm a Canadian snowbird who spends the winter in the (hopefully) warmer US. I bought a snowbird plan for my smart phone from Roam Mobility in Canada, they use T-mobile. I've had terrible service, no phone service outside major cities and when I do get data access, it shows "Edge" on my smart phone, the speed seems lower than old dial up internet.I'm looking for a plan on a pay-as-you-go basis that I can use during the winter, if possible I'd like to keep my phone number over the years, with around 500 MB to 1 gig of data per month.Any suggestions?Thanks!

Wallyworld has the straight talk plan using Verizon for $45 a month. Unlimited talk and text. It says unlimited data, but they throttle at I believe 3 gig. No contract and for $30 you can get a smart phone to use with it. Because your from Canada the keeping your own number probably won't work. YMMV

We had T-Mobile last year. When on the road you are correct it was useless. When we reached our destination in FL it worked just fine. Fortunately for us our park now has a internet service which is MUCH cheaper and works great. Good luck and hope you have better luck with yours if you stay with the same system.

Stop at the nearest US WalMart store. They offer several pay as you plans. A couple will be on either AT&T or Verizon. Pick one of those.

One thing to keep in mind as a snowbird coming from Canada, Roam coverage is not entirely dependent on the cell towers. Generally I agree with your comment, I have been in many places on the East coast from NY to FL and have seen generally poor coverage in some rural areas, but this I think also has to do with coverage differences in the two countries. In Canada, if you are within 100 miles of the border (where 90% of the population is) we have virtual blanket coverage even in the middle of nowhere and virtually no coverage in the far north. In the US however, their population is spread out more and for this reason the cell towers seem to be concentrated more around big cities and interstates. This means there are a lot of dark areas when you get off the beaten path (where many RV'rs want to be).However I did notice one major factor that is not related to their coverage map, particularly related to data. That is that many phones (iPhone being the worst offender) do not support the correct bands for 3G, 4G, LTE on Roam/Tmoble, so you are always stuck on 2G. Tmobile realized this a few years ago and started upgrading their towers to a more iPhone friendly band, but have only done so in a few dozen of the biggest cities. Bottom line, if you are using Roam on an iPhone or a cheap $0 phone this is far more likely than if you have a Pentaband or Quadband phone.

Not what you asked and I think we have talked about this before, but as a Canadian we have been very happy with Verizon. For voice our phone is $59/mon for 1400 minutes anywhere in North America. Always works. We also use Verizon mi-fi for data (only in the USA)$35/mon for 3Giga. $0/mon while in Canada. The phone is also free (uses no minutes) Verizon to Verizon. We use the Verizon phone 365 in Canada and US and mi-fi in usa only.

Best Phone/data plan for snowbirds | Good Sam Community

rwbradley
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
One thing to keep in mind as a snowbird coming from Canada, Roam coverage is not entirely dependent on the cell towers. Generally I agree with your comment, I have been in many places on the East coast from NY to FL and have seen generally poor coverage in some rural areas, but this I think also has to do with coverage differences in the two countries. In Canada, if you are within 100 miles of the border (where 90% of the population is) we have virtual blanket coverage even in the middle of nowhere and virtually no coverage in the far north. In the US however, their population is spread out more and for this reason the cell towers seem to be concentrated more around big cities and interstates. This means there are a lot of dark areas when you get off the beaten path (where many RV'rs want to be).
However I did notice one major factor that is not related to their coverage map, particularly related to data. That is that many phones (iPhone being the worst offender) do not support the correct bands for 3G, 4G, LTE on Roam/Tmoble, so you are always stuck on 2G. Tmobile realized this a few years ago and started upgrading their towers to a more iPhone friendly band, but have only done so in a few dozen of the biggest cities. Bottom line, if you are using Roam on an iPhone or a cheap $0 phone this is far more likely than if you have a Pentaband or Quadband phone.
donn0128
Explorer II
Nov 14, 2014
Stop at the nearest US WalMart store. They offer several pay as you plans. A couple will be on either AT&T or Verizon. Pick one of those.
s_N_s
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
We had T-Mobile last year. When on the road you are correct it was useless. When we reached our destination in FL it worked just fine. Fortunately for us our park now has a internet service which is MUCH cheaper and works great. Good luck and hope you have better luck with yours if you stay with the same system.
powderman426
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
Wallyworld has the straight talk plan using Verizon for $45 a month. Unlimited talk and text. It says unlimited data, but they throttle at I believe 3 gig. No contract and for $30 you can get a smart phone to use with it. Because your from Canada the keeping your own number probably won't work. YMMV

Forum Discussion

Best Phone/data plan for snowbirds

About Campground 101

Related Content

Changes to Snowbird lifestyle and Snowbird communitiess

Cell Phone plan with truly unlimited data - no metering

Telecommunications Reform (Cell Phone Service/Biometric Data

cell phone data use warming

Best cell and data phone plans