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

bjbear
Explorer
Nov 16, 2014
We use TracPhones while in the US. Pay as you go and we always purchase 1 year cards so that when we are home during the summer(Alberta, Canada) we keep our number and minutes. Reasonable price and we have many more minutes than we need.
Community Alumni
Nov 15, 2014
bartiee wrote:
what about -magic jack plus

Does not really work all that well using wifi; breaks up a lot and goes down.
bartiee
Explorer
Nov 15, 2014
what about -magic jack plus
Community Alumni
Nov 15, 2014
I use an AT&T Go phone for $60/month for unlimited calling, texting and 2.5G of data. Also I use an add-on of $5 for 250 minutes international into Canada.

The data is really handy where there is no wifi, I use the Hot-Spot to provide wifi to my iPad.
portliz
Explorer
Nov 15, 2014
Wind mobile. Friends who go south say they get better coverage in the US. Still working on better service in Canada. We use a tracphone and gmail. You can call Canadian phones for free. You do need a good WIFI connection.
blawless
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
I responded to this in another similar topic. Go to g3wireless.com It's based out of Toronto and sells (pay as you go) global simm cards for unlocked phones. The simm is $30.00 for the year and calls are 9 cents/min in the US and data is also 9 cents/mb. They use a number of telecom suppliers so I've always had service where ever I was in the states. The same simm card and phone can be used and works all over Europe, Mexico, Carribean Islands, Africa etc.. So your not just restricted to the US only. It works for most of your world travels.
You get a US or Canadian phone number along with the card and the service can be renewed each year for $14.99.
When we have wifi access we use Majic Jack.

This is not a sales pitch but the best service and price I could find from a Canadian supplier.

B.
almcc
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
Thanks rwbradley.

I've got an unlocked phone bought in the US (to get way from the Canadian bandits!)so hopefully it's not an issue. Our ultimate winter destination is Borrego Springs California, I saw a comment that AT&T and T-mobile share services there (I could be wrong!), so I'll wait to see if I get reasonable service. Our neighbours have Verizon there, so that's the way I may go with mifi. The TracFone meets our "phone only" needs.
rwbradley
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
I am not sure where you are going or what route, but if you look on the Roam site they will tell you what cities have been upgrade. I know Orlando and Atlanta have been upgraded as I was getting LTE in both cities this summer on Roam. If you can get 3G or better in one of the upgraded cities, but only get 2G in a city not in the Roam upgrade list than you know your phone does not support the old bands being used by Tmobile/Roam. If you are on Rogers/Fido there is a higher probability that this is your issue.
almcc
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
Thanks for the responses folks!

I have a Galaxy note 2 so it's not LTE capable, but I should be getting better than "E" with it.

I'll wait until we reach our final destination and make a decision then as whether to dump Roam or not. We are fortunate to have a TracFone that has been used to make calls when the smart phone didn't have a T-mobile signal.
netjam
Explorer
Nov 14, 2014
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.