Cell phone service for Canada -> U.S. if no sim card?

joebedford wrote:
I have a Telus mobile phone that can call USA. Virgin Mobile can call USA. I think they both run about 40 cents / min for calls to USA. There are others.

Walmart.ca and BestBuy.ca have lots of phones.

Cheap they're not.

You don't actually have to have a Canadian phone (the physical phone itself) as long as you have a Verizon 4G/LTE phone and a Canadian SIM.

Verizon 4G phones are not locked to the Verizon network. I currently have my Galaxy S4 Mini equipped with a prepaid Bell SIM. It is 100% functional for voice, text and data. My in-Canada calls are only 20 cents a minute because I subscribe to a texting package for $5/mo and calls to the US are 50 cents/min.

We spent the entire summer in Canada and it's really great having a local number. People are much more willing to call you back, if necessary, when they aren't making an international call. Furthermore, this same phone was awful in roaming mode; it would repeatedly lose the network. It runs perfectly fine with the Canadian SIM.

If I chose to keep the phone "alive" over the winter I think it will cost me ~$20/mo. That's in Canadian $$ which at the moment means that it really only costs me ~$15.

For us U.S. Verizon users there doesn't seem to be a better plan than the Global Canada and Mexico plan at 30/month. Neglecting the anemic 250 MB data portion, you get 250 minutes talk and unlimited texts from Canada. That works out to .12/minute and free texts. I don't believe you are going to find a burner or calling card that inexpensive, especially by the time you figure in all the fees they usually charge.

I looked at the 7-Eleven links, and it looks like you pay $1.99/month for the "global distance add-on" to enable Canada to U.S. calling, and you do get it at 2 cents/minute. But that's in addition to regular air time, which is 25 cents/minute.

The biggest problem is that from what I can tell, the phones aren't available in stores because all I see is a way to order them online. When this came up and I originally posted, we were a couple of days from going to Canada, and we've now been here a week and haven't at any of this time had a place to have a phone shipped.

I was hoping to be able to go to a store and buy a burner phone and airtime for Canada to the U.S. and be done with it. I think that's impossible.

We've done some war driving looking for open wifi and it's hit-or-miss, pretty much like we find it in the U.S. So I don't think something like Skype is a good option for someone without a generous data plan.

We're using the Verizon global thing I mentioned upthread, but that means we have only one phone. So I was looking at what it would cost to call that phone (U.S. number) from a pay phone in Canada (which are wonderfully prevalent in Toronto, anyway), and couldn't find anything so I just went to a pay phone and dialed the number; I got a message to insert $5.20 for one minute of time. Yikes.

So I started looking at calling cards, and let's just say that I feel really sorry for some foreigner or immigrant trying to navigate these seas. I found one card that touts that it doesn't charge a monthly fee, or have a 3-minute minimum or whatever, but it does have these conditions (which, by the way, are found only if you drill down into "details":

Billing is based on one minute increments. Calls may be rounded to the next subsequent full minute.
Rates subject to change without notice.
A fee of 5¢ per minute applies when a card is used from the 709 area code outside St. John's, NFLD, and from some 450, 418, and 819 independent carrier area codes in Quebec.
A fee of up to 5¢ per minute may apply when a card is used outside of the province purchased.
A surcharge of 10¢ per minute applies on calls placed to the 867 and northern 250 area codes.
A destination surcharge of up to 10% and a one minute surcharge may apply.
A 25 cents per minute charge will apply when a card is used in area codes 867, 907, and northern BC.
A surcharge of 75¢ applies when using the toll-free number from a public payphone.
An additional charge of 1¢ per minute/per call applies when using a toll free access number.
An in call fee of up to 50% of the base rate may be charged based on the destination called, time of day, duration of the call and the access number used.
An in-call network initialization charge up to a maximum of 50% of the face value may apply to the 1st call.
Calls can be placed only from Canada and continental USA (excluding Alaska & Hawaii).

Here's another one:

75¢ pay phone charge may apply. Minimum 29¢/call. Maintenance fee applies: 49¢ every three days after first use (where permitted by law) or 49¢ for the 1st call each day. When the face value of the card is not used in full a 15% billing fee is applicable at the end of each call.


I just can't believe it has to be this complicated, or that people put up with it, except they have no choice. It's ridiculous.

7-Eleven stores in Canada carry SpeakOut cell service with rates as low as 2 cents/min from Canada to the US:

http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/

and

http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/prepaid-cell-phone-rates#talk-rates

You should be able to get a phone card in Canada for international calls; they are sold everywhere else in the world. You can use this with a disposable mobile or at pay phones, which still do exist.

Pay as you go services, whether cheap phones or SIMs, generally do not cover international calling. People coming here will get a TracFone to have a phone, and an International calling card to call home. It works the same way other places I've been. Someplaces have had "Internet" cards for international calling, less expense per minute than traditional cards for voice lines. These are VOIP (like Skype, but through the card issuer's servers rather than Skype's servers), the disadvantage being that the service may not always be available. Than can be an issue also with calling cards, but not between US and Canada.

loggenrock wrote:
We just returned from 5 weeks in Newfoundland and labrador. I'm on Verizon, like others added the 250 min/250mb "Global" plan for and extra $30/mo.

When I went to change our plan to the one I outlined above, I found out that you have to have a "global" phone to get most of the plans, including that one and the $5 special that people are talking about. I don't have a global phone.

So I was left with $30 for 100 minutes of talk and 100 mb data. That's not a lot of talk time, but extra minutes are billed at 10 cents/minute, which is tolerable.

Extra data is billed at $10/100mb, which is way high and somewhat uncontrollable, so I'm using the satellite dish for all internet.

I just hope Verizon drags their feet a little and doesn't turn off CDMA-only phones in Canada on September 1 on the dot.

One thing I have noticed in Toronto is the relative abundance of working pay phones. I see them once in a blue moon in the U.S., and I've seen a bunch here, and I even saw someone using one. Kind of amazing.

I have a Telus mobile phone that can call USA. Virgin Mobile can call USA. I think they both run about 40 cents / min for calls to USA. There are others.

Walmart.ca and BestBuy.ca have lots of phones.

Cheap they're not.

joebedford wrote:

Rice wrote:
Thanks for the replies. So it looks like no burner phones with calls to the US are available in Canada.

Not sure why you concluded that. I believe the 'burners' bought in Canada will be able to call the US.

I concluded it because nobody in the thread referred to a burner phone that could make calls from Canada to the U.S. Can you tell me where I missed it?

Or give me some specifics on which companies offer what I'm looking for: a phone that will make calls from Canada to the U.S. that won't cost a fortune.

loggenrock wrote:
But if you want a new phone to use in Canada, look up "The Source" stores in Canada - electronics dealers.

Thanks for the tip. I checked their website and they have Virgin Mobile and Bell Mobility.

Virgin's site says they offer a by-the-minute plan, but local calls in Canada are 40 cents/minute, and U.S. or Canada long distance calls are 80 cents/minute. Ouch.

They also offer monthly plans, but all calls to the US have a 40 cents/minute surcharge in addition to what you're already paying. And with a monthly plan, you can't just add more money to the account--if you go over your allotment, you have to pay 80 cents/minute for any additional calls to the US.

Bell Mobility has a 50 cents/minute surcharge for long distance in Canada or to the U.S.

You Canadians really do pay a lot for cell phone service. I have a Virgin Mobile U.S. phone that is 18 cents/minute that I use sparingly because I consider it expensive.

Rice wrote:
Thanks for the replies. So it looks like no burner phones with calls to the US are available in Canada.

Not sure why you concluded that. I believe the 'burners' bought in Canada will be able to call the US.

Same thing for us - we have a Tracfone burner that we use only in US.

We just returned from 5 weeks in Newfoundland and labrador. I'm on Verizon, like others added the 250 min/250mb "Global" plan for and extra $30/mo. Worked out great - just call the global folks when you return to the states to take the plan off, they prorate the rest of the month so you don't get dinged extra. But if you want a new phone to use in Canada, look up "The Source" stores in Canada - electronics dealers. You can get pay-as-you-go phones there, but it means a new phone number to give out to folks (same deal if you got a Canadian sim card). We found it easier to just add the Global plan. ST