Canadian iPhone User - iPhoneUser.ca

One thing that always seems to be frustrating after a trip to the States is coming home and getting your cell phone bill. There is always $20 - $50 extra in roaming charges when it seems like you only used your phone for 2 minutes. I believe the cost per minute on fido is $1.70. 95 cents a minute for roaming, 75 cents a minute for long distance. Just a little ridiculous. The best way to do this is to buy a prepaid sim card from a US provider. I chose T-Mobile to go. You can’t buy the sim card directly from T-Mobile.com unless you are in the USA. But there are tons on ebay. You can get a prepaid sim card with 150 minutes on it ($30 value) for about $8 including shipping.

http://search.ebay.ca/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=t-mobile+to+go&category0

The most common sim you find on ebay are already activated and have an expiry date usually 2 months after your purchase date. If you need more minutes – you can buy refill cards at places like 7-11, t-mobile.com, or even on ebay. The refill cards start at $10 for 30 minutes. This allows you to keep the minutes and the phone number and the new expiry date will be in 90 days. As long as you purchase a new refill card before the expiry date, your minutes will always rollover. These sims usually come with a California Area code. I recently bought one of these and it works great. Haven’t gone down to the States yet.

The other way to do it is to buy a T-Mobile to go prepaid activation kit. These sell on ebay for about $10-20 and include 10 mins. The benefit to these it that it allows you to activate it yourself and choose the area code you want. I also bought one of these and will be activating a seattle area code and I travel there most often and have family there.

This is a cheap way to use your unlocked GSM phone in the States and not pay roaming. This is one of the advantages of being on the GSM network (Fido/Rogers)as this is not possible on CDMA (Telus/Bell). It only costs $10 every 3 months to keep your # active and have your minutes rollover.

Regular T-Mobile to go rates:
- Calling Canada – 50 cents
- Receiving calls – regular T-Mobile rate – starting at 33 cents a minute or less depending on the value of the refill card you bought
- Texts – 10 cents to send, 5 cents to receive
This is a fraction of what fido or rogers will charge you.

Included services:
- Nationwide long distance (including calls to Alaska and Hawaii)
- National roaming on the T-Mobile USA network
- VoiceMail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling

For more info on T-Mobile to go visit their site:

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Default.aspx?plancategory=4