No Cingular Canada roaming plans!?!?

[SteveW]

I have Cingular Nation 450 w/rollover. I am going to Vancouver for a few days on business. I remembered that Cingular had a North American roaming option and called Cingular CS yesterday prepared to pay the $9.99 or whatever, to add it to my plan. Even for a 5 day trip, it seemed worth it. I found out that the NA Roaming feature no longer exists, at any price. Dialed and received calls in Canada will cost .79/min or, if I buy the Canadian Discounted Rate plan for $3.99, .59/min.

I gently suggested that .59 was still a bit steep and asked again if there was any way to prepay for free roaming in Canada. The CS rep was very nice and apologetic. He said he personally thought it was a mistake that NA roaming was no longer available, and that some form of NA roaming may come back in the future. He added the $3.99 Canada plan to my features but also gave me a $10 credit because the feature did not meet my needs. I thanked him for his help, candor and the discount - he didn't have to do that and I have no problem with the customer service at all.

I am posting here rather than in the Cingular forum, because I'd appreciate some advice on international calling cards or other ways of cutting my phone expenses while in Canada.

Last time I was in Toronto I went into a convenience store and bought a calling card for the US, but I don't remember the brand or the per minute charge. Is there any particular calling card I should look for?

Is there another, smarter way around this problem? My current phone is locked, unfortunately, so a non-Cingular SIM won't help.

Thanx

[COtech]

Is there another, smarter way around this problem? My current phone is locked, unfortunately, so a non-Cingular SIM won't help.

Thanx

Since you are used to speaking to Cingular CS, ask for your subsidy unlock code. You could get it in four to five days, via email, after CS hands you off to a more technical rep. Then you could use a pay-as-you-go SIM on Rogers (or Fido, now part of Rogers).

Perhaps you'd be back to Canada often enough to reload minutes, and retain your number? Otherwise, prepaid cross border long distance could suffice.

Fido is offering CAN$0.20/minute long distance nationwide and to USA. Rogers has $0.25 and $0.66 per minute, respectively.

COtech

[SteveW]

Since you are used to speaking to Cingular CS, ask for your subsidy unlock code. You could get it in four to five days, via email, after CS hands you off to a more technical rep. Then you could use a pay-as-you-go SIM on Rogers (or Fido, now part of Rogers).

Perhaps you'd be back to Canada often enough to reload minutes, and retain your number? Otherwise, prepaid cross border long distance could suffice.

Fido is offering CAN$0.20/minute long distance nationwide and to USA. Rogers has $0.25 and $0.66 per minute, respectively.

COtech

Thanks. I should have said my phone is now "restricted" (due to an inept unlocking service that shall remain nameless unless they don't give me my $20 back ) and I can't unlock it with just a code.

Also, since I am traveling on business I need my normal cell phone number to work. Of course, I can call my voicemail, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

.20 CAD per minute is much better than my current .59 USD, but don't international calling cards let you call the States for much less? Of course they are a hassle because dialing is a long process and you still have the high charges when receiving calls. I figure I can work around this, though. Anyone have a recommendation on a good calling card?

[Scrumhalf]

I use onesuite.com extensively. They give you 2.5c/min for calling from Canada to the US using a local access number or 3.5c/min using a toll-free number. Check out http://www.onesuite.com

[SteveW]

I use onesuite.com extensively. They give you 2.5c/min for calling from Canada to the US using a local access number or 3.5c/min using a toll-free number. Check out http://www.onesuite.com

Thanks, that's helpful.

I'm still surprised that Cingular doesn't have NA roaming. Verizon does, apparently. If I traveled to Canada/Mexico a lot, that would induce me to switch.

[viewfly]

Thanks, that's helpful.

I'm still surprised that Cingular doesn't have NA roaming. Verizon does, apparently. If I traveled to Canada/Mexico a lot, that would induce me to switch.

What did you find on this? I was in Mexico last April. I have Cingular, but a friend had Verizon. The best we could get with Verizon was $0.69 a minute plus charges. Looking on Verizon's web page, it appears to be the same with Canada.

[Andy]

What did you find on this? I was in Mexico last April. I have Cingular, but a friend had Verizon. The best we could get with Verizon was $0.69 a minute plus charges. Looking on Verizon's web page, it appears to be the same with Canada.

Not necessarily very good plans but I guess better than nothing:

http://mobileoptions.vzw.com/interna...ing_plans.html

[viewfly]

Not necessarily very good plans but I guess better than nothing:

http://mobileoptions.VZW.com/interna...ing_plans.html

Thanks Andy. But the way I read this, it refers to calls made to Mexico (from your home area) or calls received from Mexico (to your home area)? I.e. in both cases the cell phone is in the home area, not in Mexico (or Canada). Or can i not read today.

From Verizon (your web page pointer):

"From the US:"

"International Services
North America Calling Plans"

"Make and receive calls from your Home Airtime Rate and Coverage Area (including Puerto Rico) to parts of Mexico and Canada without incurring roaming or long distance charges. "

From Outside the USA, you get the $0.69 rate;

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/m...dmaroaming.jsp

[Andy]

Thanks Andy. But the way I read this, it refers to calls made to Mexico (from your home area) or calls received from Mexico (to your home area)? I.e. in both cases the cell phone is in the home area, not in Mexico (or Canada). Or can i not read today.

From Verizon (your web page pointer):

"From the US:"

"International Services
North America Calling Plans"

"Make and receive calls from your Home Airtime Rate and Coverage Area (including Puerto Rico) to parts of Mexico and Canada without incurring roaming or long distance charges. "

From Outside the USA, you get the $0.69 rate;

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/m...dmaroaming.jsp

Viewfly, You can read, it's just Verizon's confusing wording. With the North America's Choice Plan your HOME Area is The United States, Canada and Mexico and from that HOME area you can make calls to all 3 countries without long distance or roaming charges.

[viewfly]

Viewfly, You can read, it's just Verizon's confusing wording. With the North America's Choice Plan your HOME Area is The United States, Canada and Mexico and from that HOME area you can make calls to all 3 countries without long distance or roaming charges.

Ok, I got it. This is called 'North America Choice Plan', which is separate from the 'America Choice Plan'

Thanks. Looks pretty good, if you neat to frequent those areas often.

[hinano_paradise]

I would be very wary of trying to use Verizon's North America Plan. It sounds great, but it is only great if you actually get service in the areas that Verizon claims you do. My uncle got that plan as he frequently travels to Baja California. Once he got out of sight of United States cell towers in Tijuana, he had NO SERVICE!!! He eventually got into a prolonged dispute with Verizon in which they eventually allowed him to cancel his contract without a penalty fee because the phones in fact did not get service where they said that they would.

Some other people may have had success with the plan in Canada or other parts of Mexico, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[SteveW]

I use onesuite.com extensively. They give you 2.5c/min for calling from Canada to the US using a local access number or 3.5c/min using a toll-free number. Check out http://www.onesuite.com

Update - I took Scrumhalf's advice and joined up with Onesuite. Given the 3.5c/min rate, a $15 intial investment gave me 428 minutes for calls to the US which was more than enough for my 4 days of work in Vancouver. For a business traveler, the 2.5c rate isn't very useful, since the only local number you generally have is the hotel phone and that's what you are trying to avoid using. It is nice to have a local number option, though.

One of Onesuite's advantages over the run-of-the-mill international phone card is that you can register up to 3 numbers with them and then the system recognizes you - you don't have to enter your PIN, just the 800/866 number and the number you are calling. Unfortunately, this did not work while roaming on Rogers in Canada. It does work from the US, so apparently Rogers was not relaying my caller ID.

Another advantage is that the PIN they give you is your telephone number plus 4 digits. This makes it easy to memorize - which ends up being quite important.

Only complaint, besides the caller ID thing which was not Onesuite's fault, is that the system is very finicky about pauses in entering numbers. If, in the middle of entering your 14 digit PIN and the 10 digit number you are calling, you pause for more than 2-3 seconds, you will get an error message and you have to start over. I was alerted to this when I called Customer Service and complained that the system was not recognizing my PIN. She said, "Don't enter it too fast or too slow".

Once I memorized my PIN, and I wasn't fumbling with my Palm Address book, I could enter all 24 digits without pausing too much and things were much better. All in all a pretty good service and I probably will continue to use them for other international calls while I am traveling. Thanks Scrumhalf!

[auradain]

[QUOTE=COtech]Since you are used to speaking to Cingular CS, ask for your subsidy unlock code. You could get it in four to five days, via email, after CS hands you off to a more technical rep. Then you could use a pay-as-you-go SIM on Rogers (or Fido, now part of Rogers).

That was what I understood when I upgraded a couple of weeks ago to a Sony Ericsson w600i and a Samsung d807 (family plan with Cingular). The agents that sold me the phones assured me that because I have been a long time customer (6 years) that I would qualify for the unlock codes from Cingular for use in Europe. No one mentioned that the phone has to be activated for at least 90 days to meet Cingular's criteria of releasing the unlock code - which is what I learned from speaking to a Cingular re/mgr at length yesterday. And to no avail; "It's Cingular's policy".
Now I'm stuck with two world phones and unable to use them outside the US. I am also having trouble finding outside unlocking sources for these two phone models in a hurry, as my travel date is coming right up. Will post under phone models for additional help.
But that's my story with the Cingular unlock team.

[SteveW]

Update - I took Scrumhalf's advice and joined up with Onesuite. Given the 3.5c/min rate, a $15 intial investment gave me 428 minutes for calls to the US which was more than enough for my 4 days of work in Vancouver.

Yikes, My bill came!! How did I miss the fact that Rogers and Cingular would still charge me airtime minutes and International Roaming.??!!?! The only thing I eliminated with the callling card was the long distance charge.

I tried to argue with Cingular that I was calling a Canadian toll-free (866) number, therefore all I should have been using was my airtime minutes under my plan. No way, Jose. If you are outside the US you are going to be charged, and big time.

I can't understand how I missed this, or how these cards are useful to wireless users who have not swapped in a local SIM. Yes, I know about local prepaid SIMs, but this was not an option with the phone I had at the time. Now, of course, I will use this painful incident to make sure I get an unlock code from Cingular.