Trip to Alaska

Perhaps an old fashioned CB radio to get help from the trucks if your rig is disabled? That is what we used on our Alaska trip, but that was 16 years ago.

Cell phone service is not available between towns, and can be limited or not existant in some towns. The bigger cities will have coverage.

Why do you think you need a sat phone?

Sometimes it's good to be out of phone range.

Moved from Forum Technical Support

We were up in Anchorage and Seward last summer. Used the verison phone just as in IL.

We have made numerous calsl up there from IL to make arrangements for this summer and used the basic verison cell service.

If you already have a sat phone, take it along, but it's not worth buying or renting one. The down side of a sat phone is you can't call 911 in an emergency - the sat phone system doesn't know where in the world to route your call to. So to use one, you need to know specific phone numbers to call. And you can't call 800, 866, or 877 phone numbers with one. I do have a sat phone for snowmachining and hunting. See if you can get a non - 800 out of most airlines to make reservations on, or from Good Sam for road side assistance. We may have finally got one from them, but I'll have to double check that.

You'll have phone service when you get near a town. It's just about like the traveling we've been doing thru Arizona and Colorado. At least in Canada or Alaska if you break down, someone will stop to help you if you stand in the middle of the road and flag them down.

After we spent four weeks coming down from Alaska last year and not having cell service most of the way, I found it rather nice. Even after we got to where there was more consistent service, I'd go a week or so without ever missing it.

Bill

Call your carrier and see what it costs to add Canada coverage. We added it for a very low cost when we went into Canada. Worked great! When we returned we call them (Verizon) and they cancelled it and prorated the last month. Great service!!

Your cell phone should work most everywhere there are paved highways in Alaska. AT&T was best two years ago. In Canada our AT&T phone worked but the roaming costs were exorbitant.

I live in Alaska. AT&T coverage is pretty good on most of the highways. Get off the highway a little and they share towers with ACS and GCI.

ACS and GCI just merged their towers. I think it is still a work in progress, but their coverage all over the state is much better. I believe Verizon is partnered with GCI.

Like always, check your carrier for roaming charges in foreign lands (Canada). Alaska has normal US roaming charges if your carrier is not up here.

Roaming will cost a fortune.

Bob