Buying a phone in the UK that will work in Canada..
Jun 5th 2012 | 6:24 am
#16
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 415
Re: Buying a phone in the UK that will work in Canada..
A tri band phone will work some of the time, maybe even most of the time, depending on which part of the GSM band is available at that location..
To quote "GSM-1900 is the primary band used in urban areas with 850 as a backup, and GSM-850 being the primary rural band." if your phone only has one of these bands then coverage will vary by location !
to further quote "European tri-band phones typically cover the 900, 1800 and 1900" which would mean your phone would only work whilst inside city coverage zone's (and some major highways) in large parts of Canada
To quote "GSM-1900 is the primary band used in urban areas with 850 as a backup, and GSM-850 being the primary rural band." if your phone only has one of these bands then coverage will vary by location !
to further quote "European tri-band phones typically cover the 900, 1800 and 1900" which would mean your phone would only work whilst inside city coverage zone's (and some major highways) in large parts of Canada
Yes I live in Guelph Ontario, so Triband works fine for me. Basically anywhere there is Wind Mobile, you are good!
Jun 6th 2012 | 9:31 am
#18
Just Joined
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 26
Re: Buying a phone in the UK that will work in Canada..
CDMA has gone the way of the dodo. All in all Canada is still behind Europe in mobile phone technology. Also with RIM CEOs dropping like flies these days, the Blackberry might soon become history, and perhaps Kitchener/Waterloo having it's name changed back to Berlin ( becoming a sister city )
They are laying off 6000 people
They are laying off 6000 people
Actually Canada is ahead of Europe. All the Canadian carriers have launched LTE the next evolution of GSM/UMTS, unlike the UK or most of the rest of the world at this stage.
Any Quad-band GSM phones unlocked from the last 12 years will work in Canada on Rogers. Most newer UMTS phones will work on Rogers/Bell & TELUS.
Bell and TELUS do not have a GSM network instead of GSM but have a legacy CDMA network, hence the confusion.
If you buy a newer 3G phone you will be fine. The new entrants are the only anomoly as they use a different frequency (AWS) the same as T-Mobile in the USA for their 3G service. You won't find a phone in the UK that supports that frequency band.
Last edited by yonexsp; Jun 6th 2012 at 9:34 am.
Jun 6th 2012 | 9:53 am
#19
Banned
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,342
From: Durham Region Extension
Re: Buying a phone in the UK that will work in Canada..
Actually Canada is ahead of Europe. All the Canadian carriers have launched LTE the next evolution of GSM/UMTS, unlike the UK or most of the rest of the world at this stage.
Any Quad-band GSM phones unlocked from the last 12 years will work in Canada on Rogers. Most newer UMTS phones will work on Rogers/Bell & TELUS.
Bell and TELUS do not have a GSM network instead of GSM but have a legacy CDMA network, hence the confusion.
If you buy a newer 3G phone you will be fine. The new entrants are the only anomoly as they use a different frequency (AWS) the same as T-Mobile in the USA for their 3G service. You won't find a phone in the UK that supports that frequency band.
Any Quad-band GSM phones unlocked from the last 12 years will work in Canada on Rogers. Most newer UMTS phones will work on Rogers/Bell & TELUS.
Bell and TELUS do not have a GSM network instead of GSM but have a legacy CDMA network, hence the confusion.
If you buy a newer 3G phone you will be fine. The new entrants are the only anomoly as they use a different frequency (AWS) the same as T-Mobile in the USA for their 3G service. You won't find a phone in the UK that supports that frequency band.
Jun 6th 2012 | 11:47 am
#21
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 415
Re: Buying a phone in the UK that will work in Canada..
I didnt have a car, but anywhere I went in southern ontario it worked. Many of the Canadian companies dont have signal in those places too, I cant complain about Triband, but I was only in a populated area.
