Looking for prepaid US AND Canada cell service

[Bruce in France]

Dear cell experts,

Here's our dilemma: we are Americans living semi-permanently in Europe, and our daughter is living in Canada. We make periodic trips to both the US and Canada, and would like to find a *single* prepaid phone service to use while there. I've looked into plans allowing us to use our GSM phone, but I'm really not willing to pay $3 a minute for airtime. During our last visit, we bought a TracFone based on a misleading sales pitch (yes, it's possible to call Canada from the US, and yes there's a Canadian access number to call us, but no, the phone itself doesn't work across the border -- this last point was not clear when we asked). And now we're having trouble purchasing additional minutes remotely.

So, short of maintaining our TracFone (and overcoming the purchase hurdle) and also buying a Rogers pay-as-you-go, isn't there anyone offering a full North America prepaid service?

Thanks for your advice.
Bruce in France

[Telekom]

Originally Posted by Bruce in France

Dear cell experts,

Here's our dilemma: we are Americans living semi-permanently in Europe, and our daughter is living in Canada. We make periodic trips to both the US and Canada, and would like to find a *single* prepaid phone service to use while there. I've looked into plans allowing us to use our GSM phone, but I'm really not willing to pay $3 a minute for airtime. During our last visit, we bought a TracFone based on a misleading sales pitch (yes, it's possible to call Canada from the US, and yes there's a Canadian access number to call us, but no, the phone itself doesn't work across the border -- this last point was not clear when we asked). And now we're having trouble purchasing additional minutes remotely.

So, short of maintaining our TracFone (and overcoming the purchase hurdle) and also buying a Rogers pay-as-you-go, isn't there anyone offering a full North America prepaid service?

Thanks for your advice.
Bruce in France

The short answer is no. If you want PAYG service both in the US and Canada you'll need to purchase an account in both countries. You can get Rogers/Fido service and pay 30¢/minute or pay $1.00 per day to get unlimited nights (after 18:00 to 06:00) and weekends or free incoming calls. Accounts stay active even after a $0 balance for one year.

For the US there are many options including such things as T-Mobile To Go with rates of 10 - 30¢ per minute depending on the wireless card/PIN amount or you can opt for the $1.00 per day option and get an airtime rate of 10¢/minute which gives you unlimited evening calling from 19:00 - 07:00 and free mobile-to-mobile calling. There are of course other US options that you can look into as well.

Other than that you could look into accounts such as United Mobile which will work in pretty much any GSM country, but it's not really a very cheap alternative.