Need Help! Coverage in Canada

[countrygirl85]

I'm helping my elderly parents find a cell phone. They live in Port Charlotte FL most of the year. They have a summer camp near val d'Or Canada a total remote area. They are only there for about 2 months out of the summer. They need to be able to call back to the US if they are in trouble. They have a Canadian friend who uses a 3 watt bag phone with Bell Mobility service. When he travels to the US he just pays to use AT&T svc. I've looked and looked and talked to the folks in the malls and no one can help me. They have (2) 3-watt bag phones but who will connect them? People I've talked to think i'm crazy. If that won't work...what about a digital phone that will work on roaming in that remote area? I also found a power booster (3-watt) that you can connect to certain digital cell phones along with an antenna to get svc in the remote area they are in....any suggestion?
I've been working on this for months now and I just need help!
Thank you in advance

[ZaphodB]

All three major carries, Bell Mobilité, Telus Mobilité and Rogers, have reasonably good digital coverage of Val d'Or and Rouyn-Noranda and QC-117 connecting them. Bell and Telus also have analog-only coverage of QC-117 all the way down to Mont-Tremblant and Ste-Agathe-des-Monts where it turns into the A-15 down to Montréal.

The best thing to do, I think would be to get them a Verizon or Sprint phone in Florida, tri-mode, with Canada Roaming. They should be able to use either carrier on their US-based phones. The 3-watt amplifier may help. As far as emergencies, as in the U.S. any Canadian carrier must complete a 911 call regardless of whether the phone is registered, so they could just take the analog bag phones with them. (If there's no analog signal, they're stuck whether they pay for service or not.)

I envy them... it's gorgeous up there!!

[Andy]

Does Sprint have any North America Plans that include Canada for free???
I know that Verizon has North America's Choice Plans where no roaming applies in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

[ZaphodB]

Given that they're only going to use the phones in case of emergency, it seems a bit wasteful to spend the extra money on a Canada calling plan when you can just pay the $0.69 per minute to call the US, hence my suggestion to get whatever plan they like in the US and add Canada Roaming to it.

[jones]

GSM Coverage in CANADA





CURRENT AREAS
Whitehorse


IMMINENT AREAS
Yellowknife
Inuvik


PROPOSED AREAS
Aklavik
Tuktoyaktuk
Norman Wells
Fort Simpson
Hay River
Dawson City
Watson Lake

[ZaphodB]

Thank you for the picture, jones. It shows exactly what I said -- that Rogers (which is the GSM carrier up there) has good coverage of Val d'Or and Rouyn-Noranda (that's the large blob to the east of La Sarre), but that there is no GSM coverage along the highway that leads "down to civilisation" -- that highway is covered only by analog, and it's only Bell Mobilité's analog, on which Telus customers can roam.

An analog phone is your friend in Canada once you're outside the cities.