Montréal -- European-style coverage

[ZaphodB]

I was roaming on Bell Mobilité the whole time -- INCREDIBLY good coverage... they even have the Réso (the underground city, 30 km of shopping that make it possible to go from McGill University all the way to the old city without having to set foot aboveground, which is a bonus in the -15°C weather) completely covered, including the Métro stops at Place d'Arms, Square-Victoria, Champs-de-Mars, Peel, McGill and Place-des-Arts.

(No service in the tunnels, though.)

Oddly, they have horrible coverage at the south end of the A-15 freeway (the border with New York at the top of I-87), until you get about 5 km into Canada.

[EdwardP]

I was in Montreal the second week of November and the prepay Verizon phone I took with me, roamed on Telus Mobility. Could make calls at .99/minute (had to double-dial) and receive calls, but could not text message. The phone (Nokia 3589i) displayed that it had to be in a digital service area. As the 1x was displayed in the phone, I believed I was in a digital area...

[andyourdone]

i recently went up to montreal via 87/15 and that huge dead spot...at least if i remember correctly was patched... i was on telus most of the time in montreal and bell towards the border...i NAP it though

[EdwardP]

The prepay phone also roamed on Bell at the border, it was switching between the local Verizon system and Bell. Eventually it picked up Telus and remained on Telus right through to downtown Montreal.

On that particular trip, there was non-stop coverage right from home to downtown Montreal. That sold me on Verizon postpay (which I've had since December 2005).

One thing that surprised me was when I took my first GSM phone with me to Montreal on a different past trip, this was when I had Cingular. I unexpectedly had coverage inside the hotel room and it was on full-signal. Also had full-signal with T-Mobile last year, same hotel.

[GIANTWEED]

Yeah it is strange the way the whole thing works!!

I have this Rogers plan that I thought would be...like totally comprehensive in this land and when I drove across the Canada with DD Danger ( my true friend ) she had brought her Pay as you go Virgin Phone...

So we were in Alberta in Grande Prairie...which for all of you who know is a very big place close to Edmonton and a major center and I had no service on my phone! DD's Virigin phone was used more than mine beacuse during our trip across Canada she had more areas with coverage than me...

I don't know...I just thought it was strange...

I live near Montreal now and have no problems really...well wait a minute...my phone reception out here where I live sounds like a submarine taking water but besides that I can't compain...

I just thought I'd mention that the Virgin PAYG (Pay as you go) was a life saver for us because we called for tow truck outside of Portage La Prarie!

[EdwardP]

Went back up there (Montreal) at the end of April. Verizon prepay has since become Verizon postpay. My phone (2128i) roamed on Telus 95% of the time, and Bell the rest. When calling into the U.S. from there, Bell required the "1" before the area code, however Telus did not. With the obvious exception of inside the Casino de Montreal, the 2128i received a full signal (7 bars) everywhere else in the city.

Regarding Virgin Mobile Canada, they use Bell's network.