Cell Phone usage for visitors

I have checked with my cell provider, Consumer Cellular, and they have NO coverage for us while in Canada. They go so far as to advise us to turn off phones so that no incoming calls can come in (answered or not) and cost us $5./minute.
They use the ATT cell system, I should add.

I got to wondering if there are affordable answers for cruisers in BC waters for a month or so. If we are limited to email via the occasional wifi signal that would make it difficult and time consuming to get in touch with anyone.

I have a friend that just "called" me the other morning from somewhere far up on Vancouver Island, using an open wifi connection and skype. Poor connection but at least we were able to talk.

It seems weird that there is not an easy solution for this. Heck, my coverage now is all of the US, including Hawaii and Alaska.

Comments??

Thanks,
Loren

Using a US cellphone/smartphone in Canada is a bizarrely complex, expensive, and unrewarding undertaking. There is, for all intents and purposes, no pay-as-you-go option in Canada as there is in Europe and Asia and, I think, in the US.

We travel to Canada once or twice a year for vacation, by car rather than boat, and have Verizon smartphones. For a week or two, or maybe even a month, my conclusion is that you might as well pay the exorbitant per minute cost for voice, and rely entirely on WiFi for data, even though cellular data is PARTICULARLY useful on vacation.

However, the Verizon or AT&T cost per minute of voice is much less than $5. At $5 a minute for voice, for a month at a time, would be enough for me to wonder if you should buy a Canadian tracphone.

Last year I bought a MiFi device, a little box that is supposed to convert cell data into WiFi, and thought I'd equip it with a Rogers SIM card that I might use once or twice a year. It was AT&T branded but was capable of using non-AT&T networks, with the right SIM card. The hardware worked fine, within reason. The experience was horrible, though, because:
(1) I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to find and activate the SIM card, and am still owed $130 that I will probably never see from Rogers. I went to three wireless stores and ended up spending the best part of a day on this project even though I had researched it thoroughly from home.
(2) The coverage was so poor as to be practically unusable, though our itinerary (PEI/Bay of Fundy) might have had something to do with this.

I would look forward to other explanations of what people have done in this situation.

Loren Beach said:

I have checked with my cell provider, Consumer Cellular, and they have NO coverage for us while in Canada. They go so far as to advise us to turn off phones so that no incoming calls can come in (answered or not) and cost us $5./minute.
They use the ATT cell system, I should add.

I got to wondering if there are affordable answers for cruisers in BC waters for a month or so. If we are limited to email via the occasional wifi signal that would make it difficult and time consuming to get in touch with anyone.

I have a friend that just "called" me the other morning from somewhere far up on Vancouver Island, using an open wifi connection and skype. Poor connection but at least we were able to talk.

It seems weird that there is not an easy solution for this. Heck, my coverage now is all of the US, including Hawaii and Alaska.

Comments??

Thanks,
Loren

Click to expand...

We go to Canada quite often and with Verizon I just turn on a plan that includes Canada (Nationwide Plus Canada IIRC). The data is another adder, usually limited to 500MB, but it is very reasonable. When we get home I turn the service off. I usually do this over the phone with Verizon because I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan and don't want to lose that if I make a mistake doing it on-line... I do this two to three times per year....

When sailing any more than a mile off shore and in US waters we are at risk of picking up the Canadian carrier. Typically the phone rings and I answer it not noticing the microscopic carrier ID at the top of the screen. I talk for 15 or 20 minutes about some cute thing the kitty cat did at home and am then presented with a roaming charge on my next bill which nearly doubles the already excessively high bill.

Reports from the "field"

After a great time at the Rendezvous in Maple Bay, we wandered up the island a ways, and then reversed course southwards and crossed into the San Juan's.
What with spotty wifi service (don't believe all of those ads from distant marinas promising "free wifi", or that it actually functions reliably), it would have been great to have a working cell phone.

I finally sent an email to our provider, Consumer Cellular (they use the ATT system), and asked for any suggestions...

They replied that they routinely "switch off" international roaming on all of their phones, unless the customer specifically requests that it be turned on. After considering the ramifications of a potential future billing battle with them and some unknown cell carrier over Canadian calls (even calls not answered...!) we decided to keep the status quo.
While some folks seem to like the temporary Trac Phone (aka a 'burn phone') idea, there does not seem to be a real solution.

Just for fun, I sent an email to BoatUS to ask them why they do not get into this business. After all, they routinely rent out GPS position finders to boaters with monitoring programs. Actually got back a good reply and they said they would look into it. I was thinking that there must be large number of their members vacationing in Canada every year that would love a reasonably-priced option of getting a functioning flip phone (or for extra $ a smart phone) by two-day mail with XXX number of minutes loaded onto it and a way to add more time if needed. Just send it back in the same box when arriving home again.

Next problem is reception even within the San Juans. Other boaters tell us that they have a lot of trouble getting good connectivity with their ATT phones and some (but not all) say that their Verizon phones do work more reliably.
We would hate to change from the very high level of support we enjoy now to the arrogance of Verizon, but might yet have to think about it.

One of my friends on our delivery north has a Verizon account and his phone can function as a decently-fast wifi hot spot. Using this on my own computer while sitting in Port Angeles was pretty cool. He uses this feature a lot and feels that it justifies the monthly payment of about $120. I doubt that it works in Canada without some extra charges, either.

Still a quandary -- how to best get affordable (with good reception!) cell service in these waters.

Cheers,
Loren