Any recommendations on cell phone plans in the Ottawa area?

I need to get one for personal and business use, preferrably free evenings and weekends, also need to be able to call Uk and US.
Am not particularly interested in a phone with all the bells and whistles, just want something I can make and receive calls on without requiring a university degree to work out how to use the damn thing!!

Any and all recommendations gratefully received. Ta!

Ask more questions than we did!

Look for coverage (not all, even the big ones, cover all populated areas)

Incredibly on ours you have to PAY for INCOMING calls!!

Check roaming charges, long distance etc.

In a nutshell, the mobile services here are not what you'd expect after coming from the UK.

I'm with Virgin, and they work well for me. For $40 a month, you get unlimited evenings and weekends (7pm to 7am), and 100 daytime minutes - you might need more than that if you're going to use it for work, though?
Good thing about them is that you won't be on a 20-year plan with no chance to get out - it's all PAYG.

Telus offers up to 350 minutes, plus unlimited local nights and weekends, from 6pm. You do have to sign up for at least a year, though... Their PAYG has some interesting add-ons, like $1 a day for unlimited incoming calls, or $2 a day for unlimited incoming/messaging/early night and weekend.

afaik every provider charges you "airtime" - which means every minute (they round them up, of course) you use their network. the only way to "avoid" that is to buy a plan which includes a certain amount of minutes - or if you go with a pay as you go purchase an add-on which gives you things like unlimited local evenings and weekends or unlimited incoming local calls.




trish, i have no idea about providers or your background, but i have a few general questions for you to consider before you make a decision for a provider. (they are more towards private use if you're able to have your costs covered under business expenses some questions might matter less or differently):

- how much time do you phone with the cell? and in which ratio personal / business? if business use is high enough other plans might be available to you than are for us "normal users".

- is your cell meant to be a short term thing intensely used until you have a land line and after that more an emergency device? or will it be the way to reach you on a long term base?
with most providers you can have pay as you go, or plans with 1 to 3 year contracts -> if your needs change in a short time frame it could mean hassle and/or money to change your plan

- where do you use it?
at least here in bc your number is "attached" to a local area like a land line -> once you leave that area you pay long distance rates on your airtime, depending on the carrier and plan on top of your local rate...
and as geedee mentioned: coverage can vary considerably between providers (i even heard people mention that fido seems to have less reliable coverage than rogers - even though they belong to the same company and use the same network...)

- i was up to write: how much time do you phone where (local/national/international)?
this is definitively a question about private use... but since you can use long distance phone cards with your cell too you have the possibility to avoid astronomical bills as long as you can call an access-number in your local area or toll free

- do you want a post-paid contract or prepaid (pay as you go)?
often the price you pay for the former includes some mysterious account maintenance fee (name differs with the providers) whereas with the later you have to consider that your balance has an expiry date -> the smaller the amount you load up the shorter the validity of your balance.

afaik every provider charges you "airtime" -


I think you're right. I was on about it being a surprise for newcomers, as incoming isn't charged in the UK (well, it wasn't with Virgin. When I go back home, I buy a Virgin chip for five quid, which has 5 quids worth of talk-time free, chuck it in the phone and off I go! And you can top them up at cashpoints! How cool is that?!)

i know *sigh*
i'm not able to text or receive text messages from people living in my former country of residence with my canadian cell.
i just took my chip with me when i was there last time, got myself a cheap unlocked gsm tri band phone here - didn't have a triband back in europe. (i don't do business with rogers/fido, that means cdma-technology which works without sim-card -> your entire phone is locked to the according cell number, and has no compatibility with sim-cards...)
now even my dad can text me - and i send him massages over the web. costs me nothing, and that bit of a balance which i need to keep my chip alive is valid forever...


and just to mention it: virgin uk and virgin canada seem to be a different pair of shoes - virgin canada works with cdma as well.

Most cell phone company plans here in Canada charge for total air time, including incoming....however, you can get unlimited incoming as a feature on a 'retention' plan with most companies. www.redflagdeals.com has a thread in their forums section all about 'hot deal for Rogers Wireless Customers' in which over a course of about 810 pages, Rogers customers post the non-advertised deals they got after being with Rogers for a while. I get 700 daytime minutes, e/weekends starting at 18h00, caller ID, voice mail, 1000 CDN long distance for about $55/month including system activation fee (a scam), PST/GST etc. If with Rogers, ExpressVU, Telus you have more than 1 product (i.e cell/internet/TV/home phone you can negotiate better deals.

For calls to the UK, I use yak.ca where it costs $0.05 a minute I think.