Hi. Just wondering if i have a phone that is tri band over here i can use it in canada with one of there sim cards?

You have to get it unlocked if it isn't already, and then I think FIDO and ROGERS are the only companies that use SIM cards here. This question was asked last month, so check out the replies here:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ight=SIM+cards

Thanks Morwenna. I think i will buy one here to take just in case. Have looked on net for canadian mobiles and they are not the most appealling to the eye

Canadian phones for some reason are not upto the spec we have in the UK I guess its purely because of the numbers on the networks.

UK GSM phones work fine as long as they are tri-band and unlocked as mentioned earlier. Unlocking costs about £5 and you can get the codes from ebay sellers or some phone shops.

Philip

'pends on what handset you have. Anything locked with BB5 algorithm is as yet unbreakable and you must go to your network. Three charge you about £15 - £35 depending on spend and handset, and refuse to before your contract is up. Voda, Orange, and the rest, it's more like £5 - £15 and they 'usually' will before your contract is over. O2's come unlocked.

Phew! Thought I was the only one who thought that!! I'm going to miss 12 month contracts with 1,000 minutes and 500 text messages and 30MB of data for £35 a month...

Here's hoping my phone will work out in Canada....

Ok you've got me started now...rant on the mobile phones in Nova Scotia...poor service, poor customer service, texts taking 3 days to reach uk, texts from uk never reaching me, poor feature plans, cell phones with no sims so you cant swap networks without getting new phone and new number, number changes with new network, long distance v local charges rather than off and on peak, $500-1000 deposits to phone UK, no picture messaging service to Uk....is that it? sure there is more i can moan about!

Oh yeah and I was told by Orange in the UK that to use a UK phone i needed a quad band monile for nova scotia...my tri band doesn't work!

Correct except for the "-ies" ending on the word "companies". Rogers now owns Fido. Which is why both networks are expensive and rubbish. The PAYG service in Canada is awful, with expiry times of 15 days on their stupid little over-the-counter vouchers (everyone else in the developed world has gone to swipe cards). Even Caller ID here is a charged-for service, and sometimes works too. Want SMS receipt acknowledgement? Forget it.

Using GSM in Canada is like using GSM in Europe in 1993: patchy, flaky, expensive. I used to wonder why the competition regulators allowed one GSM operator to buy the only other one, but having spent months in Canada I'm not surprised: screwing the customer is a Canadian past-time (from Ontario Hydro and ICBC car insurance through to the Quebec energy board hiking gas prices).

If I were you I'd get something for another network where there is some competition to exert a (however slight) market pressure on the rotten operators here to offer a decent service. Have a look at Virgin, for example. Other networks offer Push-to-Talk too. What they fail at is international roaming, but you can always keep your GSM phone and keep a UK SIM going for when you visit the UK (anyway, the eye-watering charges for roaming with Rogers/Fido make it prohibitive to take your Canadian GSM phone out of the country anyway).

K.

Oh yeah kt0157 you reminded me about the cr**py expiration thing on the pay as you go vouchers.....more ranting...

What do you mean "Nova Scotia"? You mean "Canada".

One can't complain too much about coverage because of the vast distances involved. Fair enough (although I do point out that I've been able to use Skype + wifi all over Canada, but not my damned Fido SIM). But that doesn't explain the rotten service, terrible value, poor technical implementation (for example, voice mail requires an access code - which hasn't been the case in Europe since about 1996). And GPRS - ha! ("GPR-what-now?" is the only response I ever got).

K.

mmm i thought it was just a maritimes thing...i'd assumed the rest of canada would be more advanced - scary thought. i dont think ppl here want to communicate with anyone overseas.

i can't believe they dont even have sim cards here in most of the networks and when i asked about the motorola pebl they'd never heard of it when it's old news in europe.

it's so frustrating to have a phone that allows you to take nice pics of your new environment then to find you cant send them home to the uk.... i know you can transfer them to your pc and msn them but that's not the point, why on earth doesn't canada have an agreement with the uk to allow picture messaging...they apparently only signed the US agreement this year so i was told by telus.

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry...

I've been spoilt rotten in the UK and I never even knew!

No, that excuse is rubbish. For GSM networks, it's GPRS. In the UK I have my GPRS set up nicely to pick up and send email on the move. It's a lot cheaper to use the phone to send an email with the photo as an attachment rather than use picture messaging.

There is no need for any roaming agreements to send and receive picture messages: the system works by your phone punting a copy of the picture up to your host network's computers, where they create a www reference to the picture. The phone then sends a text message to the recipient in a special format, and the receiving phone then looks at the text message and fetches the picture from your host network's web site.

The thing is, Fido and Rogers GPRS is just broken. They claim it works, but it doesn't. So everything that relies on GPRS is broken too and that would include picture messaging because it uses GRPS to punt the photo over to the operator's web site.

But most things to do with mobile phones in Canada are rubbish (as you discovered). It's just one of the many frustrating disappointments about moving to Canada.

K.

Yes. Mostly because there are 3 GSM networks and 4 3G networks to choose from, plus a dozen VMNOs which gives a lot of choice, and a lot of competition, with little lock-in thanks to a regulator who is looking out for the consumer and not big business (plus a European regulator who is doing the same to end the roaming rip-off).

But why worry? The anger and frustration at getting a credit card, or a decent price for car insurance will soon make you forget the crappy phone service.

K.

Cry it is then.