I'm giving my old U.S. cell phone to a friend who will shortly be visiting the Canada and the U.S. It's a Virgin Mobile one on some kind of pay-as-you-go plan. You can top-up online using a credit card, but you need a card with a U.S. billing address, which he doesn't have. You can also top up using a PayPal account, but this is probably too complicated for him.
So my questions are: 1. will this phone work in Canada? 2. will it cost the same 20c/10c to use in Canada, or will he be paying crazy international rates while over there? 3. is it possible to top up with cash by buying vouchers or something in shops? Which shops? And will this be possible in Canada?
― caek, Saturday, 9 August 2008 16:38 (seventeen years ago)
I have a Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go that I purchased in Canada. There are top-up cards in the Best Buy type stores here. I believe I looked into it and it works in the states, but I can't remember what the roaming charge situation was. Although the base rate if you're on no sort of plan here is 30ยข/min.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 9 August 2008 16:42 (seventeen years ago)
Also: In general, the cell phone situation in Canada is completely awful.
I'd check into roaming rates for U.S. Virgin Mobile customers while in Canada. Depending on how much your friend plans to make calls in Canada, it might be more worthwhile to pick up a separate pay-as-you-go phone there.
― Millsner, Saturday, 9 August 2008 16:48 (seventeen years ago)
And yes, having spent several summers hawking cell phones in Canada, Casuisty is completely OTM.
― Millsner, Saturday, 9 August 2008 16:49 (seventeen years ago)
I can't find the international roaming rates anywhere, but yeah, picking one up for very few Canadian dollars will probably be easier for him.
― caek, Saturday, 9 August 2008 17:00 (seventeen years ago)
I live on the US/Canada border and my roaming rates (with Verizon) are 69 cents/minute.
― kate78, Saturday, 9 August 2008 17:37 (seventeen years ago)
It'll work in Canada but finding credit for it might be sticky. I think HMV sells Virgin top ups... or used to (at one point they sold Virgin phones)... and I seem to recall corner shops like 7-Eleven and uhh, that other one, Mac's, selling them in some cases? maybe? I might not be remembering correctly. Not very many people in Canada actually use Virgin so it might be a bit hard to find top up vouchers.
xpost; I don't know how easy/worth it it'd be to pick up a PAYG phone for Canada separately, though. They are not cheap (ie when I worked at HMV the cheapest Virgin phone was still $99) unless you can source a secondhand one before going. How many phone calls does this person need to make? I think if it's a 'for emergencies only' sort of thing it's better just to stick with the one phone...
― salsa shark, Saturday, 9 August 2008 20:14 (seventeen years ago)
Cheapest Virgin phone is now $49, I think, at my local Best Buy.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 9 August 2008 20:31 (seventeen years ago)
If the phone is a GSM then a simple local sim card is all that would be all that is required, mind you I juat bought a new one from ATT the other day and they gave me a whole extra phone, admittedly I put $100 on it but still.
― Ed, Saturday, 9 August 2008 20:35 (seventeen years ago)
GSM would make things easier, yeah, but Virgin Mobile is CDMA, operating in Canada as a MVNO off a shared Bell and Telus network.
If you picked up a GSM phone you could roam on AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, plus Rogers/Fido (basically the same thing) in Canada.
― Millsner, Saturday, 9 August 2008 20:48 (seventeen years ago)