Can someone walk me through using a US SIM card in a Canadian smartphone?

[peacefrogdog]

I've got an old iPhone 3GS - trying to figure out the process of using a US SIM card in it whenever travelling down to Florida. Specific questions:

1. If I have someone in the US buy me a card (and then send to me), is it a specific type I need? i.e. a pay as you go SIM card? Or are all SIM cards the same, and the difference is whatever I set up afterwards (see below)?

2. Once it is installed, I assume I have to activate it. Can I do this in Canada? If so, how to do this, given that I probably won't get a signal here? Or only after getting to the US, in which case I would have to have net access before the phone will work?

3. Anything else I need to think about?

 

[Sue M]

First thing you have to do is have your phone unlocked. Check out London Drugs. They have a US SIM card. I forget what the name was. I was looking into it, then phoned my carrier (Telus) and they matched the roaming pkg I was going to get in the US.

 

[bankr63]

Check out ROAM Mobility http://www.roammobility.com/, a Vancouver based company specifically offering US SIM cards to Canadian users. They are inexpensive and easy to keep active from year to year.

Your 3GS should take a micro size sim (they come in 3 size, the new nano sims are for the latest iPhone 5s). The standard/micro sims come in the same package.

Your phone will need to be unlocked IF it is locked. That is generally the case if you purchased from a carrier on a plan. Phones purchased directly from Apple are not locked to the original carrier network. If it is locked, you can unlock yourself for less than $20 if you are moderately skilled with tecnology, or have a 3rd party or the carrier unlock it for you (generally $30-$50).

We now have two unlocked android phones with roam sims. Basically forward your Canadian number to your US number then swap sims just before you cross the border. Voice and text are unlimited, data is 100MB/day.

 

[Maddysdaddy]

OP - just wanted to direct you to the sticky at the top of the page in case you weren't aware it was there. Lots of great information in there about the wheres and hows of doing what you want to do.

First thing you will need to figure out is whether your phone is unlocked. Telus and, I believe Rogers, will unlock your iPhone for a fee. To the best of my knowledge, Bell still does not.

iPhones are a different story than other cell phones, where you can go to 3rd party providers to unlock your phone for you - the Apple unlock process requires the service provider to contact Apple to have your phone unlocked on the Apple servers. Anyone other than service providers who claim to be able to unlock iPhones are selling you a bill of goods - there are temporary workarounds (such as Gevey), but they will not be able to permanently unlock your phone.

If you review the sticky, you will see the different options that are available to you (Roam - if you don't want to unlock, T-Mobile - if you are with Telus, etc).

 

[michelle1]

Through the Future Shop website we bought a phone from Roam mobility for $49.99. It is an unlocked phone and comes with the SIM card in it so all you need to do is go on the Roam website and activate it when you need to use it. We already had an old blackberry that we got unlocked and bought a SIM card for but we wanted an extra phone since we are often in the US at the same time but in different locations. For $50 we got the phone, SIM card and delivery to my house was included.

 

[3pletprincesses]

sorry to highjack but with Roam, when they say top up once a year to keep your number can it simply be done y adding 1 day?

 

[Sprockie]

From what I read on the website, that's exactly it. Top up as little as 1 day per year to keep your number.
Sounds very interesting and ideally suited to our travek style. I think we'll get unlocked and get set up with Roam.

sorry to highjack but with Roam, when they say top up once a year to keep your number can it simply be done y adding 1 day?

 

[twinz]

I have an unlocked iPhone 5 (which I got done at Apple when I bought the phone.). I went to ATT and purchased a SIM card for the 5, and just switch it when I cross the boarder. I have to get a prepaid card but it's not difficult at all. My sister uses ROAM mobility and they really are GREAT.

 

[Sprockie]

I ordered my Roam sim card a few days ago and hubby will be using it in Texas at the end of the month. I will report back. The nice thing about Roam is that you can call back to Canada as well as within the U.S. which is particularly useful for us.

 

[Tropics]

As long as you have an unlocked phone, get a prepaid SIM card from the carrier of your choice, put it in your phone and you're good to go. I'm currently in the US and I just did that using T Mobile. I really like T Mobile's rates, especially the $2 or $3 per day unlimited rates. It is SO nice feeling free to use my phone in the US now without worrying about the crazy roaming rates my carrier charges!

 

[Maddysdaddy]

As long as you have an unlocked phone, get a prepaid SIM card from the carrier of your choice, put it in your phone and you're good to go. I'm currently in the US and I just did that using T Mobile. I really like T Mobile's rates, especially the $2 or $3 per day unlimited rates. It is SO nice feeling free to use my phone in the US now without worrying about the crazy roaming rates my carrier charges!

I'm a big fan of T-Mo, primarily for the unlimited data (which you have a cap on using Roam) and the fact that it can be a couple of dollars a day less expensive. However... for those who are travelling and want to call back to Canada and who are not particularly tech savvy, Roam may be the way to go, as calls back home are included.

If you are tech savvy and feel comfortable setting up a Google Voice account once you are in the US (you can't do it from Canada), which will let you call Canada for free, then T-Mo is great.

The only other downside to T-Mo is that they won't ship a sim to Canada, so you'll need to stop in at one of their stores once you cross the border.

Long story short... T-Mo is better and less expensive, but is more of a hassle to use than Roam.

 

[bankr63]

As long as you have an unlocked phone, get a prepaid SIM card from the carrier of your choice, put it in your phone and you're good to go. I'm currently in the US and I just did that using T Mobile. I really like T Mobile's rates, especially the $2 or $3 per day unlimited rates. It is SO nice feeling free to use my phone in the US now without worrying about the crazy roaming rates my carrier charges!

What I didn't like about this was that the dang things keep expiring. Yes you can get a new one each time (I've got a graveyard of expired throwaway phone stuff), but if you don't make it down to the US often enough to top up, your number will expire and you'll have to get a new sim and a new number. Roam will keep my number alive and my sim registered as long as I add one day a year to my account - I don't even have to travel to the US to get it to work. Roam really does put a lot of convenience into their offering for Canadian travellers. I've been given a hard time registering US phones with my Canadian address - they don't know how to handle foreign residents down there. That is worth the extra $1/day for me!

 

[Tropics]

I'm a big fan of T-Mo, primarily for the unlimited data (which you have a cap on using Roam) and the fact that it can be a couple of dollars a day less expensive. However... for those who are travelling and want to call back to Canada and who are not particularly tech savvy, Roam may be the way to go, as calls back home are included.

If you are tech savvy and feel comfortable setting up a Google Voice account once you are in the US (you can't do it from Canada), which will let you call Canada for free, then T-Mo is great.

The only other downside to T-Mo is that they won't ship a sim to Canada, so you'll need to stop in at one of their stores once you cross the border.

Long story short... T-Mo is better and less expensive, but is more of a hassle to use than Roam.

T mobile is DEFINITELY more of a hassle to get going. I tried to order a SIM in their website shipping to my US hotel and nothing would work (not even temporarily changing my billing address to a US address. But I didn't like the Roam restrictions for a higher cost.

With T mobile once you have cumulatively put $100 on your account you get Gold service (or something like that) which keeps your account open and active for a year instead of just 90 days. I haven't figured out the details yet on that one.