What phone to use in the USA?

Some folks who are planning on travelling to the south for an extended Snowbird stay might encounter some complications about what phone to use in the USA. This page provides a broad range of cell phone information to help the Canadian Snowbird heading south and puzzled about the whole phone situation.

Please, if you read this article and have what you feel is a better option for roaming cell service in the U.S., please post details as a comment at the end of this page.

What’s on this page:

• The problem with older 3G cell phone plans and roaming.
• Does 3 G still work in Canada?
• So now some folks no longer have roaming in the U.S.
• Is the cell phone locked or unlocked?
• What does a budget concious U.S. roaming Snowbird do for cell service now?
• How we resolved our cell phone issue.

The problem with older 3G cell phone plans and roaming.

Roaming cell service means that the Canadian cell provider provides a Canadian cell owner the ability to use their Canadian cell phones in the U.S. while “roaming” cross border from Canada into the U.S.

In the last year and a bit, the U.S. telecom industry as a whole removed support for slower and older 3G cellular networks completely, with a complete shut down of 3G services in February 2022.

As a result of these industry changes, any older cell phone using 3G – even though 3G still presently works in Canada- cannot be used in the U.S. regardless of what U. S. network is selected to provide cell service there.

We had  selected a Canadian cell provider that didn’t cost us an arm and a leg, costing us about 50% of what the big cell phone companies in Canada were charging for comparable service. That service of about $30 month provided text, phone and a couple of gigs of data for all of Canada. They also had a US cellular roaming option that was very well priced and we used that for some years when at our Snowbird home.

• we had the same Canadian phone number
• all calls to our number in North America were routed to our smart phone while in the U.S.

Then the 3G “hammer fell”. Our provider piggybacked their Canadian service on the back of one of the Canadian big-three cellular providers, those providers too were dropping 3G from their service, thus rendering  our cellular provider instantly unable to provide a US roaming plan.

We had to find another way to use our relatively new cell phones while in the U.S.

Does 3 G still work in Canada?

At present, yes. Anecdotally, there are plans to discontinue 3G in Canada by 2025, but that may happen sooner as older cell phones are replaced with phones that operated on 4G or even 5G.

New phones will work on the 4G network which is expected to be around until 2030-ish and the newest phones may also be able to access the upcoming 5G network. Major carriers are ramping up to use 5 G for their services and in time expect 4G networks to be phased out to migrate folks to the even-faster 5G and then, whatever comes next. Cell service is evolving continuously.

So now some folks no longer have cellular roaming in the U.S.

Acquisition of a newer phone will allow the user to have 4G access, but what if the existing Canadian carrier no longer offers U.S. roaming at all? What then?

Canada’s big three carriers do still offer roaming in the U.S. for phones able to access the 4G networks.

We found their rates to be prohibitive for us. For example, Bell Canada in late 2022 offers a 30 day U.S. roaming plan for $60. If one is in the U.S. for 5 months, the roaming charge will add up to $150, and even at that the plan is very limited in talking minutes, and includes only 1 Gig of data. In fairness it offers unlimited text messages in and out.

The trend for many to have their cell phones on and using data all the time including the frequent use of cell phones for navigation, to find local tourist attractions, hotels and restaurants and to stream entertainment means that 1 gig of data may not be enough.. Exceeding that 1 gig cap means that internet access will end until the user orders another chunk of data, adding to the monthly cost of that service.

Every 30 days the Canadian would have to contact Bell Canada from the U.S. to renew the roaming plan and still might have to upated the data plan if the 1 gig was consumed.

We did not check all the major Canadian carriers recently though we can say that historically each of them were within a couple of dollars of the other for their cost of cell serivice and their roaming packages.

Is the cell phone locked or unlocked? You need to know.

When a cell phone is acquired from a cell phone provider it often comes with a term (usually a 2 year term – an older phone may have a 3 year term) giving the client a lower cell phone and the provider “locks” the phone to that service.

At the end of the contract, the cell plan provider typically will leave the phone locked until such time as the phone owner makes a change.

On a locked phone, even if the SIM (subscriber information module) card is changed, the new SIM won’t initialize in the phone as the “locking” prevents that from happening.

Locked cell phone options include:

• if the contract with the carrier has expired, contact them and request that the phone be unlocked. This is your right and they have to unlock it. The phone owner will still have to pay the monthly fee they agreed to, until such time as they change contracts or carriers.
• having an unlocked phone means that the owner can then seek competitive services in Canada using your own phone if they so desired, and also to exchange the SIM with another acquired in a different country, which is what we did.
• if the phone remains locked, there are options for those folks and this is covered further along in this article.

What does a budget concious U.S. roaming Snowbird do for cell service now?

1. Whether the cell phone is locked or unlocked, one option is a to use the Canadian cell phone and purchase the roaming service from the existing Canadian cell phone provider if they offer U.S. roaming services.

If this is the choice it means that…

• the cell phone user keeps the same Canadian phone number while roaming in the U.S.
• this could be the least complex solution for some

2. If the Canadian cell phone is “locked”,  one option is to acquire another cell phone in the U.S.

We know of some folks that have acquired a U.S. cell phone and a U.S. number. They use this phone all the time they are in the U.S., and keep the same U.S. number from year to year, paying for the service for the whole year, even when back in Canada.

• this means having a new U.S. number and the complexities as noted above with the in-house phone
• this option allows them to carry the phone with them, and to use all the on-line services available if the phone acquired is a smart phone

Another option for a locked cell phone is to have a land-line installed at the Florida home. If a Snowbird is staying at a property they own,  a “land line” could be installed by the local provider, purchase a house phone, and simply forgo the use of the Canadian cell phone entirely.

• this means having a new U.S. number, and alerting interested parties in Canada of that number
• the land line could be used to call the Canadian cell service provider to check for messages on their Canadian number
• the new home-phone could only be used when at “home” in the U.S.
• typically home phones are not “smart” and cannot provide all the services that a “smart” cell phone can
• will it be long before the U.S. carriers stop supporting land-lines entirely

We know of some longer term owners here in Florida that bought a local phone, pay for their Florida land-phone-line year round, even though they only used it wehn they were are at their Snowbird home in the U.S. This works for them.

How we resolved our cell phone issue!!

We have no affiliation with the U.S. carrier we selected. If you read this article and feel that you have a better option for roaming cell service in the U.S., please post details as a comment at the end of this page. Help other Snowbirds, won’t you?

Our Canadian carrier could no longer deliver roaming services for us even though their Canadian cellular rates were quite satisfactory. Their U.S. roaming package when they could provide the service was also very well priced. We wanted to emulate the cost if we could and get good cell service over almost all of the U.S. when down there for the winter.

Our choice!

We had done a great deal of research on the best option for reliable and widely supported cell phone service while in the U.S.

We opted for the following:

• using our unlocked, reasonably late model Samsung phones
• not prepared to pay the roaming charges (nor the in Canada cell charges) of the larger Canadian cell com providers
• we wanted to keep our Canadian cell phone number and port it to the U.S. This is NOT possible
• we provided our U.S. phone number to selected folks at home in Canada
• we opted for 2 packages, one for each phone

The packages selected include:

• 6 months (3 paid for, 3 included at no extra charge, of unlimited talk and text North America wide for each phone
• 4 gig of data for one phone
• 10 gig of data for the second phone
• message service on both lines for folks to leave messages
• uses the T-Mobile high speed 5G network in most areas
• Cost for phone 1 – $45.00 + tax
• Cost for phone 2 – $60.00 + tax

Total cost $111.83 U.S. funds, for 6 months service as noted.

We opted for greater data package for one phone as that’s the one used for navigation when we are driving around, as well as the primary phone for finding “stuff” while we are travelling. Also, the Best Buy we went to only had one of the 4Gig Sims available, and we wanted to get both phones running right away.

Upon set up, we immediately texted our  new phone numbers to interested parties, and we were back in business!

Installation of Mint Mobile on our phones.

Mint mobile offers an on-line purchase, and a “virtual” Sim card. The “virtual” part of it is that the SIM is electronic, and in theory means that you could have two SIMs in the same phone.

When we looked at this option, we found that one of our phones did not support this.

Also, we didn’t want to ship a SIM package from the U.S. to Canada before we left, as historically getting stuff across the border for us has always been fraught with unexpected delays.

We decided to drive across the border on our way south, stop at the first Best Buy store we could, and buy the SIM cards there. This we did, and a very nice and capable store person named Therion was kind enough to set up both phones for us while we waited, double checking to be sure that both worked on the Mint system, before we left the store.

Done, and good for 6 months wandering around the U.S. with no expected issues to come.

If you read this article and feel that you have a better option for roaming cell service in the U.S., please post details as a comment at the end of this page. Help other Snowbirds, won’t you?