Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America?

An anonymous reader writes I'll be returning to North America for July for the first time in a few years, and I'm curious how the phone carrier market compares with the rest of the world. My last time in the U.S., I had to pick up a disposable phone with all kinds of unnecessary environmental waste (charger, packaging, etc.), and *still* had to register it with another domestic (!) phone number and credit card. I don't think I could get a SIM card there without a contract. Anywhere else I travel, picking up a new SIM card with pre-loaded credit is trivially easy. In my last trip to the UK, I just put GBP 10 into a vending machine at the airport and picked up a loaded SIM card for my phone which aldready has my contacts and settings. No ID, no name, no hassle. What are the best options for me in North America (U.S. *and* Canada)?

Comments

You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[sconeu]

T-Mobile has a pay-as-you go SIM. I think AT&T does, too.

T-Mobile's is cheaper, but they have coverage issues (may not be a problem, depending on where you go).

See also this story.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[scream at the sky]

Prepaid service in Canada sucks ass.

Services like Wind and Mobilicity are dirt cheap, offering unlimited voice and data, but stop working as soon as you leave your major urban areas. They also use AWS frequencies, so unless you have a phone that works on 1700 HSPA you're SOL. If you are going to Canada first, look at Wind because they also have an offer where you can get unlimited US Roaming on your account for $15, this would save the need to pick up a second SIM while in the US.

The big 3 (Rogers, Telus, Bell) frankly don't give a crap about prepaid service, and charge so much for it that it makes more sense to go onto a contract plan and cancel service the same day you leave the country (no more 30 day notice required thanks to the CRTC and the WCOC. Rogers gives the best compatibility with hardware (GSM 850,1900, a fist full of HSPA and LTE Frequencies as well) where Telus and Bell only support HSPA (850, 1900) or LTE on a handful of frequencies.

If you are just going to be in major urban areas Chat-R Wireless (which is just a Rogers Wireless sub brand) has the best rates, but as soon as you are outside of a major urban area your pay through the nose in domestic roaming charges, and the biggest data plan they offer is 200MB for a month (if this matters to you). I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Chat-R offers a nano sim, so if you have an iPhone 5/5S/5C or an HTC One M* you're SOL as well,

Expect the SIM to cost you between $10 and $20, as well as your first month service upfront.

Disclosure: Industry pro, I've worked in the Canuck retail telecom industry since '99. I've worked for every provider in the country in one aspect or another, and they all suck, I'm cynical and jaded about it, so take advice with a grain of salt, the size of a Buick.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd recommend prepaid plans (gosmart mobile, etc.,). Those don't require a credit check, and it's just a less of a pain in the neck for temporary service...

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I had with T-mobile is that they use a different frequency in the US compared to in Europe.
And it wasn't supported by my phone.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[c6gunner]

Prepaid service in Canada sucks ass.

Depends on your needs. In Canada I tend to go with Koodo mobile; pay $15 for the month as a base charge, then buy however much data or voice I'll need. I conserve my data usage so 1 gig of 4G data can cost me for 4-5 months. And both data and voice with them are "Canada wide", so no roaming or long distance charges, plus they never expire. I had my phone with them for a full year, and on average it's cost me about $25 / month, total.

In the US, on the other hand, I tend to shell out the $60 per month so I can have unlimited data and calling. Unfortunately you're right about Canada not really having any decent offerings for "unlimited use".

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Chat-R offers a nano sim, so if you have an iPhone 5/5S/5C or an HTC One M* you're SOL as well,

You can walk into any cellphone repair shop and have them punch your existing sim to a nano.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

What ridiculous phone is that? I have a variant of the Galaxy S4 that is a US T-mobile Exclusive. It still worked just fine with Tmobile (4E) UK, 4G and everything. Pop in the SIM, and after a few minutes, it was good to go.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Albanach]

Clearly you want GSM, so that means AT&T or T-mobile in the United States. AT&T has much better coverage nationwide, but if T-Mobile has coverage where you are heading they are great.

You can get a Net10 sim with unlimited calls, texts and 2.5GB of internet access, and pay $50/month. They're an AT&T MVNO. Probably not as cheap as you've seen in Europe, but it's pretty good when compared to most other plans. Net10 sim cards are available on Amazon.com I don't know if you can find it in stores.

Re: You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recoment in usa getting Gosmart Sim $20 from eBay for first month.
unlimited calls, text and 2g data. $35 a month after that or in store.
Works great on my friends carrier unlocked uk gsm phone.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Michalson]

If you are only going to use it in Canada either 7-Eleven's "Speakout" or Petro Canada Gas Station's "Petro Canada Mobility" provide a cheap way of getting onto Roger's Canada wide network without any of the restrictions they slap on their in-house brands Chatr and Fido. There used to be a nice cheap way to get data but since they starting offering Android phones you'll get the same insane fee (10$ for 100mb) as the other Canadian carriers but without any unlimited option. SIM cards are $5-$15 dollars depending on current promotions and you can purchase a SIM card, airtime or phone over the counter in 30 seconds (just make sure you say clearly which provider you want airtime for, these are gas station/convience store clerks, not telecom pros). Speakout tends to be slightly cheaper/better package deals but 7-Eleven locations in Canada are few and far between.

I'll agree that Wind does offer a good deal if you want to go outside of Canada, not just in the US but their roaming rates are far more competitive then other Canadian carriers.

But you might want to look into what roaming rates you can get from a carrier in your own country first, they might be better.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[toonces33]

With my ancient Razr not-so-smart phone, I had to manually change the settings for the phone to select a different set of frequency bands. But it was doable.

WIth my current smartphone, I don't seem to need to do anything. I got off the plane at Heathrow and it just worked.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

A phone that wasn't 4G.
Most of the newer phones support all the various frequencies, but the one I had at the time didn't.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[John.Banister]

I tried to get just a sim card from AT&T. They told me that they sell them, but only to people who already have a monthly account. T-Mobile roams on AT&T towers.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[John.Banister]

If you travel internationally and want to use your same phone, then owning a phone that's internationally capable is a prerequisite.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

T-Mobile has a pay-as-you go SIM. I think AT&T does, too.

T-Mobile's is cheaper, but they have coverage issues (may not be a problem, depending on where you go).

See also this story.

This. They do a day by day deal for $3 a day - 200mb of 3g data and then unlimited Edge/GPRS + unlimited US calls.
Take an unlocked phone.

Works well in my experience in SF.

Re: You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except koodo is telus and telus sucks. They actually had their legal counsel stand up and court and tell the judge that they didn't have to supply service to me but that I had to continue to pay them until the contract was complete. I kicked their ass in small claims. They consistently over-sell their bandwidth in both internet and cellphone services. Telus sucks. It's true.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[scream at the sky]

Mini SIM to Micro SIM can be punched no problem, but I sell a lot of nano sims because someone tried to punch their existing sim down to a Nano, only to find that the entire nano sim (plastic frame included) is smaller than the cut out area, and their sim is now ruined.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[puto]

You are either lying are did not go to an official AT&T store. http://www.att.com/shop/wirele...

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Macrat]

Yeah, I had a similar problem with a friend visiting the US again and forgot to bring his currently active prepay T-Mobile SIM.

He stopped in a mall near the airport to have his prepay account switched to a new SIM and they tried to sell him a phone. That's when I had to explain to him that the mall kiosks are 3rd parties reselling T-Mobile services and are not actual T-Mobile stores.

I took him to an actual T-Mobile store and they had him set up in a few minutes.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Larryish]

Dunno about the maple syrup folks, but in the States you can get StraightTalk "bring your own phone" package at Walmart for around $60.00. Their unlimited prepaid service plans run $45 per month before taxes.

Moved to their service from ATT and save almost $40 per month.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Larryish]

Addendum: The $60ish package includes a card for one month of unlimited service.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[TrevorB]

Virgin Mobile has a semi-decent pay-as-you-go option for Canada: $0.35/min for phone calls, with a 100MB/mo Data Addon for $10, or 500MB/mo for $20. or 1GB/mo for $30. It's better than having a recurring data plan, you can just walk in and get a SIM card, and it works well enough for me, I end up paying about $22-23/mo. Works great in my unlocked Nexus 4.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[tlhIngan]

If you're going to Canada first then the US, you're in luck because there's a really easy SIM to get for Canadians heading South.

It's called Roam Mobility and they're a US MVNO that sells their SIMs in Canada (if you're on the west coast, head into a London Drugs store, go to the cell department and ask to buy a Roam Mobility SIM.

If not, they do sell the SIMs online. It's a fairly nice option for Canadians heading to the US for days, weeks or a month. And it's pretty much no-questions-asked - you just buy the SIM and activate it online for however long you need.

In Canada, well, prepaid generally is a bigger bother - while you can buy SIMs by heading to a store, they aren't too happy about selling them (less money for them). As an earlier poster said, you probably want to use Wind or Mobilicity if you can (if you do Wind, pay for the US package and you can roam in the US as well, which isn't too bad a deal)., but you will need a phone that can do AWS (e.g., the iPhone 5/5s can, last I checked, as well as the other regular bands). They can sell you one, but beware that unlocked ones like Nexus phones are WILDLY overpriced (I've seen a Nexus 4 be almost $600 - yes, you could walk into an Apple Store and get the iPhone 5. The Nexus 4 sold for around $250 or so off Google Play). But that's only if your current phone doesn't do AWS (I mention the iPhone 5 because it does, as well as regular bands from other carriers. I do know that there often are special AWS models of popular Android flagships like the SGS3 (a friend tried to activate one and couldn't because it didn't do AWS), and I think the Nexus 4 couldn't either unless you got the special one.)

Oh, and no carrier, despite having the "no contract price" on the phone will ever sell you a handset for that price unless you actually were in a contract and wanted an out-of-sync upgrade. Other than Wind or Mobilicity, who are prepaid services, that is. (As I'm no longer in a contract, well, it means my phone options in Canada are limited to Apple if I wanted in-store service, or Google if I wanted to put up with Google Play (bleh - I got burned badly with the Nexus 7 when I could buy it retail for cheaper, and have it sooner than when Google finally fulfilled my order! I mean, I could walk into a store and buy one, or order it online for free shipping and have it in my hand a couple of weeks sooner (stupid UPS)).

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Pubstar]

I'm paying $60/month right now for unlimited everything on T Mobile, but I don't get throttled data (yes, I did get full LTE speed for 37GB one month), and it includes tethering. If you are not as data heavy as I am, you can easily get an unlimited plan for $40, if not less.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T does - I used one for a hotspot when visiting there earlier in the year.

What was very annoying was you *had* to buy topup vouchers from a shop as online it required a US credit card (it wouldn't accept a UK one). In my case that meant being forced to stop working if data run out unexpectedly (I bought plenty at a time but used 15GB total) then making a 1 hour round trip to Walmart to get a new voucher.

And if the data allowance had run out I had to go to the local Starbucks hotspot to use the voucher. You couldn't get to the topup webpage without data, and although you could also use USSD that had no interface on the AT&T hotspot (the netgear aircard one) and there was no way to do it in my phone since it'd mean switching to the mini-SIM to get it in the phone which then wouldn't let you put it back into the hotspot which only used the regular size.

So yes, it's entirely possible, but it's not perfect. At least the USSD won't ever be an issue if you're planning to use it in your phone.

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[j-beda]

7-11 has a "fan-constructed" website with lots of good info at http://www.speakoutwireless.ca... and their "official" one is at http://speakout7eleven.ca/

You can order a SIM online for postal delivery (maybe only to Canada?) or walk into a 7-11 and pick one up directly. I think they only do regular or mini-SIMs, so you'll need to cut it for a micro-SIM size. https://www.google.ca/search?q...

If you are on the west coast, find someone who uses Shaw for their ISP and get them to give you a Shaw login/email on their account and you'll have access to a whole wack of wifi hotspots mostly in BC and Alberta, but a few farther East. http://www.shaw.ca/wifi/hotspo...

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[John.Banister]

Or, I was lied to. Or, they changed the policy since then. Or, they apply different policies to different regions. In the legal section of the link you posted it says "service activation required" (ie, you can't just buy a sim and send it to somebody. You, the purchaser, have to set up an account as an att customer as part of receiving the sim).

I could say "You are either too stupid to think up any other explanation or you deliberately want to crate a false dichotomy." But really, who knows why you write stuff?

Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[FreezerJam]

Oh, and no carrier, despite having the "no contract price" on the phone will ever sell you a handset for that price unless you actually were in a contract and wanted an out-of-sync upgrade

As long as 'carrier' is 'major carrier' that is likely true. I know that many MVNOs don't limit themselves. PCMobile( http://www.pcmobile.ca/ ) is a small brand, with the large backing of Loblaws (a Canadian grocery empire). They have only a small selection of phones, and they are all locked. Their prepaid rides on the Bell network, and their postpaid is on the Telus network. But at least their rates are clear, and any time I have to phone support, it really appears that they have not offshored their call centre. They do have data rates for prepaid, up to $30 for 1GB (I know, I know), but at least it's there. Two potential concerns -- the phones are all carrier-locked - which is common across most carriers anyway (unlock on prepaid is available, should be on postpaid), and the prepaid cards are somewhat harder to find - unless you go to Loblaws or a related grocery store.

It's possible to roam with various options available, but watch out for the data charges -- looks like about $5/MB minimum (!!!).

As to the point of sales? For prepaid phones, you go to the store, check the display phones, pull the card for the phone of choice, and checkout which is where they actually get your phone and give it to you. That's it. The whole setup thing happens later, typically over the phone. I've seem similar results for a straight over the counter purchase from Virgin Mobile as well. Note that stores will try and get you to move to postpaid, because that way you pay more. Be polite, but firm, and if you aren't getting what your research said you should be able to get, leave.

Since it rides on Bell or Telus, coverage does not seem to be a problem. Base rates appear to all include number ID on calls, and voice mail. Watch the voicemail one carefully - some brands appear to have a good rate, until you discover that they *NEVER* include voicemail, and you're on the hook for an extra $10 a month.

In general, I would say that you want to leverage WiFi wherever you can -- it's getting to be quite common, and apps like the Android "WiFi Web Login" will often let your phone automatically reconnect to many WiFi locations in stores and restaurants. Lock down your apps so that you know for certain what is using mobile data. It's still going to be a bit of time sink to manage it -- but that's pretty much what the carriers want. Either you use the time to manage the pain yourself, or you pay them to make the pain go away.

Carrier pigeon

[Anonymous Coward]

Take along a carrier pigeon...

Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you had such a problem. There are many GSM carriers that offer SIM/pre-pay, and have for as long as I can recall.

You can usually get these at the checkout counters near gift-cards in box box stores. I know AT&T and T-Mobile both have pre-paid/GSM service.

Re:Not a problem

[Z00L00K]

It's a problem since you need to find a vendor that carries those.

Re:Not a problem

[Dahan]

I don't know why you had such a problem. There are many GSM carriers that offer SIM/pre-pay, and have for as long as I can recall.

Agreed. He doesn't say exactly when his last trip to the US was, but AT&T and T-Mobile had prepaid SIMs "a few years ago". I don't know if there are any airport shops that sell them (seems like there would be), but as you say, they're readily available in various stores outside the airport.

However, AT&T's prepaid plans suck for tourists... if you have a smartphone (and seeing that this is /., I bet OP does), AT&T will make you get a "smartphone" plan, which starts at $25 for a month of service, and doesn't actually include any data--that's an extra $5 for a measly 50MB. T-Mobile has prepaid plans that I think would work better for a short-term visitor, e.g., perhaps their $3/day unlimited plan.

But I think the best prepaid plans in the US for visitors come from "MVNO"s--basically companies that resell access to either AT&T's or T-Mobile's network, such as Airvoice or Ultra. Unfortunately, their SIMs tend not to be available in actual physical stores, which makes buying their service impractical for a visitor.

Re:Not a problem

[Eunuchswear]

if you have a smartphone (and seeing that this is /., I bet OP does), AT&T will make you get a "smartphone" plan,

How do thy do that? What's a their definition of a "smartpone" and how do they detect it?

Re:Not a problem

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Via the IMEI database, which is the "serial number" of the phone, and is unique per phone.

You can just buy a sim

[HornWumpus]

You can pay cash for a SIM at just about any big box vendor.

But US phones are mostly frequency locked to carriers.

If you are lucky (or are willing to settle for edge data rates) you can likely find a network that your phone works on. That will lead you to a group of pre-paid SIM vendors.

It starts with which network your phone will work on and how well. Do your research.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[drinkypoo]

But US phones are mostly frequency locked to carriers.

While that may be true, it's pretty easy to avoid such phones. Just going with a GSM provider takes care of most of it.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[schnell]

But US phones are mostly frequency locked to carriers.

Kinda sorta used to be more but not so much now.

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that, unlike pretty much the rest of the world, US carriers did not standardize on the GSM technology family. Back in the day, AT&T and T-Mobile chose GSM, while Verizon and Sprint chose the CDMA technology family. So right there you had incompatible technologies between carriers that didn't exist most anywhere else in the world (except for Japan and Korea, mainly).

Phones built to run on the GSM family of technologies use SIM cards and are generally "SIM-swappable." Some phones, typically the ones bought on a contract for a discount, are "SIM-locked" to a carrier meaning that the phone has to be unlocked by the original carrier before the phone can be used with a SIM from another carrier. However, pretty much all cheap/prepaid phones are not SIM locked and can be swapped easily. Phones built to run on CDMA family of technologies do not use SIM cards so are a moot point for "SIM swapping."

Oh, and don't forget this in your research - there are at least three popular SIM card sizes roaming (no pun intended) in the wild these days, and they are mutually incompatible. So don't expect to take the full-sized SIM out of your feature phone and transfer it to the micro SIM slot of a Galaxy S4 or the nano SIM slot of an iPhone 5s ... although of course you can buy adapters that will make smaller SIMs fit into larger slots.

In case you're wondering, the fact that all four major US carriers are using LTE nowadays should make the situation less complicated, but it really doesn't. That's because there are virtually no phones out there that use LTE exclusively. Unless your carrier has VoLTE deployed, your "LTE" phone is just using LTE for data but is falling back to 3G CDMA or GSM/HSPA to make your voice calls. So even though every LTE phone has a SIM, phones on legacy CDMA carriers aren't full "SIM-swappable."

Long story short - SIM swappability these days is far less about carrier locking and more about SIM sizes and which network you're trying to use. Good luck!

Re:You can just buy a sim

[Briareos]

Oh, and don't forget this in your research - there are at least three popular SIM card sizes roaming (no pun intended) in the wild these days, and they are mutually incompatible. So don't expect to take the full-sized SIM out of your feature phone and transfer it to the micro SIM slot of a Galaxy S4 or the nano SIM slot of an iPhone 5s ... although of course you can buy adapters that will make smaller SIMs fit into larger slots.

Except of course that SIM cards are mostly plastic, with a smart-card-y bit where the contacts are, so it's perfectly possible to cut a regular SIM card down to whatever size you need as long as you use a template and a pair of scissors or one of the cheap SIM cutters you can get on Amazon or ask the guys in the next phone shop to do it for you...

I used a mini SIM in my Motorola Milestone until I got a Samsung S3 when it came out and I needed a micro SIM card - converting my SIM was a rather short and simple home crafting project.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[whoever57]

I am not sure what the point of your post was, since it seems to be mostly irrelevant.

As far as I can tell, the person asking the question wants to just get a SIM card and put it into his already unlocked phone. Obviously, he needs to ask for the right size SIM (to match his exisitng phone) when buying.

So, the only question is whether his phone supports the necessary frequencies and standards for either AT&T's or T-Mobile's network.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[toonces33]

I have seen SIM card vending machines near the luggage retrieval at some international airports in the U.S.

U.S. phones aren't so much frequency locked to carriers - they are what they call "subsidy locked" to one specific carrier, but that happens when you purchase a phone from a U.S. carrier. If you are coming from outside of the U.S., and have an unlocked phone, then all you should need is the SIM card.

Some older phones had a more limited set of frequency bands - my old Motorola Razr was a "quad-band" phone that could work anywhere that I could find a GSM signal. But even older phones had fewer bands, which typically meant that they might not work in some locales.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[Eunuchswear]

You can pay cash for a SIM at just about any big box vendor.

Sorry old chap, don't get your banter.

What's a "big box vendor"? Somoeone who sells big boxes? Most sim cards I've seen are rather small.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[sparkeyjames]

Big Box refers to the big boxy buildings that their stores are usually in.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[Anonymous Coward]

>there are at least three popular SIM card sizes roaming (no pun intended) in the wild these days,
>and they are mutually incompatible. So don't expect to take the full-sized SIM out of your feature
>phone and transfer it to the micro SIM slot of a Galaxy S4 or the nano SIM slot of an iPhone 5s

There are 3 SIM sizes:
-full
-micro
-nano

No wait, let's do that again:
There are 4 SIM size:
-full
-mini
-micro
-nano

What you think is full, is actually mini. A full sized simcard is like the smartcard on your bank/credit card, it ha been near a decade since I saw the last phone that actually used a full size SIM.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[EvilJoker]

Phones are rarely (intentionally) locked by frequency. Most are locked by SIM.

Frequency locking happens when a phone simply doesn't support frequencies used by another carrier. A quick glance at this chart shows that GSM carriers are no better than CDMA on supporting more frequencies.

Re:You can just buy a sim

[drinkypoo]

Frequency locking happens when a phone simply doesn't support frequencies used by another carrier. A quick glance at this chart shows that GSM carriers are no better than CDMA on supporting more frequencies.

Most phones that are expensive enough to care about are quad-band anyway, so that covers basic phone functionality. And since the USA is one of the most primitive cellphone markets in the world, it's not hard to find a phone which covers the commonly used "high-speed" wireless technologies, either. The provider lock is a bigger deal, but it's rare it costs more than $15 for an online unlock.

Go Phone - AT&T Store

[Anonymous Coward]

Go into any AT&T store, and ask for a "Go Phone" SIM card... it is free, they activate it in the store with no credit check (and no ID check... you can make up a name and tell them you are getting it fro some friends coming from Europe)

Then go online and put money on it and select a plan.

Re:Go Phone - AT&T Store

[Fjandr]

Unless it's changed recently, MyGoPhone SIM cards are not free. AT&T will doing you for $10 to get one.

Re:Go Phone - AT&T Store

[fuzzywig]

In the UK most pay-as-you-go carriers will give you a free SIM, often with £5-£10 worth of credit, as a way to get to you locked to their network.

H2O Wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen displays selling SIM cards and cheap cell phones in several grocery stores in my area (Arlington, VA). However, I haven't tried any of them.

When I got my GSM smartphone for use in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, I got a SIM card from H2O Wireless at https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=index . I've used that SIM card for over a year now with no contract and no problems. You could probably order a SIM card from them before you leave for the states and thus have it with you when you land.

Re: SIM-Card Solutions In North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all of your options will require a trip to a brick and mortar retailer of some sort, whether they be freestanding corporate stores, big box stores or third-party independent dealers. Prepaid options in the US are primarily focused on monthly flay-rate service with unlimited voice, messaging and varying levels of data access with the most common monthly data allowance now being 3GB at the high end with LTE access included. AT&T and T-Mobile are the two GSM carriers in the US, while their networks also power a spate of independent virtual operators, the majority of which operate online and have a smaller physical retail presence, However, depending on the service provider, you may be required to show ID and any sort of online account management also requires personal information.

Go with Apple and AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

So it costs you a little more, but do you want to be seen as a poor European tourista who can't even afford an iPhone with LTE service from AT&T? Ha! No wonder the Americans had to save your asses in WWII. As for Canada, all cities are close to the border so you can get signal from America.

Re:Go with Apple and AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore the last sentence. The signal from the U.S. into Canada only extends for a short bit. Relying on using AT&T in Canada would be extremely unwise as you'd be paying roaming rates for connecting to Canadian providers.

Re:Go with Apple and AT&T

[Eunuchswear]

Ignore the last sentence.

Woooosh.

any gas station in the ghetto

[steak]

go to any gas station in the ghetto and buy all the sim you want.

Re:any gas station in the ghetto

[Eunuchswear]

"the ghetto" is what the advanced parts of the world call what you know as "the USA". You know, lots of fat pasty white people sitting on those little electric carts.

Re:any gas station in the ghetto

[LynnwoodRooster]

You know, lots of fat pasty white people sitting on those little electric carts.

As far as I know, golf is played worldwide, not just in the US...

Re:any gas station in the ghetto

[sillybilly]

What a waste of flowering plants and flower sucking bugs golf is.

Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[Kagato]

For the most reasonable rates I'd go with Straight Talk (WalMart) for GSM or Ting for CDMA service. Not sure if you can get away with not giving a name, but neither need any form of contract. I would skip the airport Kiosk and go right to a WalMart of Target for the pre-paid cards.

Re:Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

and by going into WalMart you get to see the amazing weird side of American culture, bonus!

Re:Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[Anonymous Coward]

Ting requires a credit card with a US billing address.

Re:Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[Giant Electronic Bra]

You can buy a SIM and a month of service online from Straight Talk as well. They also support CDMA phones (but you get to use the Sprint network in that case). Straight Talk is actually a brand owned by TracPhone. In any case spare yourself the trip to Wallyworld, its not really worth seeing unless you're actually here and needing something NOW.

Re: Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[Panaflex]

I second straightalk. You don't need a credit card - just buy the $45 dollar sim kit and you can choose att, tmobile or verizon - a full month unlimited talk, text, data all included. They also have a 60 dollar international plan.

Don't screw up the activation - dont port your number. Just get a new number - otherwise you have phone hell. And straighttalk phone service is awful. But the phone service is great. Go figure...

Re: Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[Panaflex]

Should be straightalk customer service is awful, as I said the phone service is great.

Re: Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA

[james_pb]

Should be straightalk customer service is awful, as I said the phone service is great.

Awful is relative. I'm a happy straighttalk customer; at various times I've been an unhappy customer with Sprint, TMobile, and ATT contracts. You'd have a hard time convincing me straighttalk is worse than any of those - but they're all variations on bad. Absolute worst case, you wave goodbye to straighttalk early in a month, and you're out something like $45. No early termination fees makes it much easier to deal with bad service.

H2O wireless - Sim without Phone

[Stonent1]

BestBuy sells H2O wireless SIMs that do not come with phones. The card says use with any unlocked GSM phone.

Re:H2O wireless - Sim without Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

> BestBuy sells H2O wireless SIMs that do not come with phones. The card says use with any unlocked GSM phone.

I use H2O Wireless. It even works with GSM phones that are carrier locked to AT&T. I know it because that's what I'm using, never even had to register with ATT, just bought the phone at wal-mart and bough the H2O sim at bestbuy. It is a really good deal for very low volume callers, I spend $10 for 100 minutes that last 3 months.

Another alternative is Lyca - which anyone from Europe will already be familiar with. Their american operations are bare-bones but super cheap and their minutes don't expire as long as you top-up with a couple of bucks every couple of months. You can buy a Lyca sim at Target.

http://www.lycamobile.us/en/

Re:H2O wireless - Sim without Phone

[Eunuchswear]

I use H2O Wireless. It even works with GSM phones that are carrier locked to AT&T.

presumably because it's a MVNO on the AT&T network.

Re:frist! best option is to stay where you are

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear sir, is not our fault that your mother left you at 2 yo and your father hated you.
Please crawl back to the cave (or under the bridge) where you live.

Sign An Annoyed Citizen .

no problem

[mspohr]

ATT T-Mobile and resellers (at 7-11,etc) all offer SIM cards without contract.

T-MOBILE, T-MOBILE, and one more time T-MOBILE

[Anonymous Coward]

All other providers SUCK de LUXE! Even Africa one gets better and easier SIM offerings than USA. Mexico also fares for the bottom of the barrel though...

Re:T-MOBILE, T-MOBILE, and one more time T-MOBILE

[raburton]

> Even Africa one gets better and easier SIM offerings than USA
Some parts of it yes, Kenya was just like here in the UK. In Ethiopia I had to go to a government office with my passport, fill in a form, and provide a passport photo for them to keep just for a pay as you go sim. Although you could buy them unofficially off the street too.

Re:T-MOBILE, T-MOBILE, and one more time T-MOBILE

[Eunuchswear]

I was naif, in the Ivory Coast I went to the Orange HQ. They looked at me like I was an idiot and told me to buy it off an itinerant street vendor.

His eyes lit up when I told him I wanted to buy the 1 month internet prepaid plan - ($30 if I remember right).

I believe the AT&T MVNO "H2O Wireless" is best

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/
They have decently cheap data and unlimited talk/text. Plus it's AT&T which is the best GSM network.

Verizon has the best coverage but is CDMA so you're SOL with a GSM phone and it's the most expensive as well.

Striaght Talk

[Anonymous Coward]

Here: http://www.shopstraighttalk.com/bpdirect/straighttalk/Start.do?action=view&locale=en&market=GSM4&productFamily=simcards

They'll set you up with a sim, unlimited voice, sms, and data* (with all sorts of fine print on limitations) for about 50 USD.

get a canadian gsm phone

[Anonymous Coward]

either pre-paid or no contract with free US roaming and no long distance charges in north america

our one gsm provider does offer this service under one of the many different brands it uses to make you forget their is only 1 gsm provider

Pre-paid SIM

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no big deal. Go into any T-Mobile or AT&T store and they'll set you up with a SIM for about $10. I've done this a few times and it has worked out just fine.

Disposable phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a drug dealer or a terrorist? We need to know which so we know what carrier to suggest.

prepare

[stenvar]

There are a bunch of companies selling SIM cards online (e.g. Telestial), both for the US and for global roaming; just search on Google. I've found that kind of mail-order to be the best source for SIM cards for travel.

Walmart, some electronics retailers, and some drugstores also sell cheap prepaid SIM cards that are easy to activate.

Since only half of US carriers use GSM, your choices are a bit limited. Also, most Americans apparently prefer subsidized phones and subscription plans, since the prepaid BYOP plans are just not that popular.

Re:prepare

[james_pb]

There are a bunch of companies selling SIM cards online (e.g. Telestial), both for the US and for global roaming; just search on Google.

When I looked at these, they had crazy pricing for data. It only made sense if you were going through a different country every other day and couldn't be bothered with local sims.

Carriers in USA, and subcarrier

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many companies having a contract with a big carrier who buy in bulk and resell it at a price which is VERY competitive. A while back I moved my kid from Sprint to Ting and the primary difference, is price and phone deals.

The selection of phones which you can get from Ting is more limited, but if you already have one it's a non-issue.

The cost of the service is really aimed towards those who are not the top users. My kid send thousands of texts, limited calls and data and her bill went from the ~$100 to ~$30. Ting charges for use for 3 services: minutes, I/M and data, broken down into ranges that increase by about $4 for each increase.

http://www.unlockedshop.com/a-full-list-of-gsm-carriers-in-the-usa/ has a list of all carriers. A bit of research should reveal a selection of GSM sub carrier with great pricing.

Well Americans are not advanced to use SIMS

[Anonymous Coward]

We tried it a few years ago, but most Americans could not figure out what to do with the sims, some even were reported puttin them in there months and I heard one had to go to ER to have it removed from the inner ear. See what you need to learn about Americans, is we love easy stuff If it requires anything more then pick up and use, we loose interest in it all together and we have fits of drama rage.So as you can see SIMS do not work well in the land of the free and spoiled. Yes its more logical to use SIMS, yea its smarter to not have contracts...but you see...here in Merica and we do it our way Merica or die...!!!

Re:Well Americans are not advanced to use SIMS

[sir-gold]

My ex-roomate sent her phone in for warranty repair, and removed what she THOUGHT was the microSD card full of nude selfies.

When she got the new phone, she asked me for help because all the pictures were gone from the microSD

It turned out she had kept the (completely useless) sim card, and left the microSD card in the phone for everyone at the Verizon warehouse to look though.

Question is stupid

[kamapuaa]

Instead of asking Slashdot such a silly question you could also just google getting a gsm sim card in the us.

Lo and behold!

#1) "The best Prepaid SIM Cards"
#2) "SIM Cards - Best Buy"

It's been trivial to do this for about a decade and 5 seconds of googling got me the answer. This is one of the stupidest ask slashdots ever, and they are almost all incredibly stupid. I'm not looking and I'm going to guess tImothy put this story up.
checks the top of the page
Yup. Fuck timothy.

Re:Question is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Slashdot was always intended as Troll magnet in the hopes of alleviating the number of stupid posts overwhelming the other carefully crafted articles. Like so many other things Beta broke it. Still, browsing at -1 gets you the best comments. What's with the Timothy haters? You try and keep the sewage pipeline of Slashdot drivel fully queued up and see if you can do as well.

Re:Question is stupid

[ve3oat]

"Instead of asking Slashdot such a silly question ..." You are way off base. I am a Canadian who isn't very happy with my mobile phone service and the OP's question is very relevant as I don't know enough about the technical parameters to just google an answer to my concerns. The answers here have been, largely, very informative for me. This is all about what is so very wrong with the Canadian mobile phone market and the regulations governing it, and I expect it extends to the U.S. market as well. I just hope our blessed CRTC is paying attention to this conversation.

Re:Question is stupid

[Frosty Piss]

This is one of the stupidest ask slashdots ever, and they are almost all incredibly stupid.

This trend is not just with the "Ask Slashdot". Dice decided that they wanted to expand the Slashdot Audience to the variety store magazine rack PCmeg crowd - Slashdot Beta is a part of that project. It's all about maximizing page-views before flushing the whole thing down the toilet.

Re:Question is stupid

[Frosty Piss]

I don't know enough about the technical parameters to just google an answer to my concerns

With search engines, you simply start out with a simple "global" question, and narrow it down. If you can't ask the "big question" and narrow it down based on search results, that you really don't know what you're asking in the first place.

Re:Question is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... FAIL!

#1 : is an 18 month old article. If ANY article talking about cell phones, service, or the like isn't within 6 months, it's out of date by a long shot! MERGERS happen in a fraction of that time.

#2 : I wouldn't go to Best Buy if that was the ONLY place to get a cell phone on the planet. I'd go without. And I say this as an American!

So yes, for 5 seconds of googling, you got 'relevant' links, that are either out of date, or the LAST option in the world, when it comes to trusting a company! Bravo! Then again, we're talking about US cellular providers here, so EVERYONE is fucked even before they sign up, so there's that.

Re:Question is stupid

[berberine]

Question is not stupid. Maybe OP should have said what part of America they are returning to, but, where I live nothing in #1 or #2 works for me.

I had T-Mobile for a while, but there is no data plan with it, texts took several days to get to people, but voice worked. They were nice about cancelling my contract. ,br>
We have two providers in town, Viaero and Verizon. The Verizon pay-as-you-go plan was $10 more expensive a month and they wouldn't let me use my unlocked phone on their system. I don't know why, but I just couldn't be bothered arguing with them. Drove across town and got Viaero. The only down side is if I'm out of the county, I can't get an internet connection.

Re:Question is stupid

[ve3oat]

Yep! That's why reading answers on Slashdot to other people's well-formulated questions is so rewarding. You can learn a lot in a short period of time.

Voice, data or both?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't really mention if you are looking for voice or data.

I am in Canada, so I can only answer your question for Canada.

One of the cheapest options for voice is 7-11 mobility, which is really just a reseller for rogers. $25 for a year of pre-paid service, free incoming texts, 25 cents outgoing text 25 cents a minute voice. It is a prepaid service, so no credit check or anything. They also have 100 Megabyte per month data for $10 a month, which can get you through a few emails and emergency GPS use at least. You can buy just a sim card, although you may need to bring a sim card cutter to cut to fix your phone size.

Re: Instead of posting an article

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this post was like when Grandpa types his Google searches into Facebook.

4 Band GSM

[PPH]

You have a 4 band GSM phone, right?

I had to pick up a disposable phone

This would be the case if your GSM phone only supported the two EU bands. Or if you mistakenly walked into a shop that handled non-GSM carriers (Verizon).

Have a 4 band phone and go to an AT&T or T-Mobile shop (or reseller) and pick up a prepaid SIM. No problem. Your phone isn't carrier locked, as you can swap SIMs in the EU. Using that phone here will not be a problem here. Carrier locks are used if you buy a phone on contract (to keep you from skippig out on paying the phone subsidy). But if you own it outright, the carriers don't care.

Tourist != terrorist

[tepples]

My aunt is a drug dealer, you insensitive clod!

OP is a tourist, and there's a big difference between a tourist and a terrorist.

Re:Tourist != terrorist

[Anonymous Coward]

ok well when your a tourist are you more likely to try and resell drugs, or harm people randomly?

because one carrier's pricing is best for SMS and has free incoming calls, perfect for your terrorists remote detonators. While the other carrier comes with free call display and more airtime perfect for arranging all your various clients and suppliers...

Re:Tourist != terrorist

[aardvarkjoe]

OP is a tourist, and there's a big difference between a tourist and a terrorist.

After going through customs a couple times, I'm pretty sure the US government considers them to be the same thing.

Re:Tourist != terrorist

[Eunuchswear]

Are Homeland Security aware of this?

P-Tel

[Anonymous Coward]

I am thinking about trying P-Tel out as they have 2 cent texting and 5 cent minute voice. I'm waiting for my SIM cards to come in the mail.

https://www.ptel.com/ is sometimes down.

I still need to decipher https://www.ptel.com/plans for the pay as you go stuff.

Just had the same

[Anonymous Coward]

T-mobile. $3 a day no contract or even better if you do get a contract. Link it to google voice and its great.

H20 wireless or similar

[Lawrence_Bird]

Go to Best Buy, get a sim card for $10. Go online, activate. Minutes are in $10 increments good for 90 days, 5c a minute for talk and text

Re:H20 wireless or similar

[Z00L00K]

The problem I encountered last time I tried that I was offered two options, either a phone packaged with it or to lock my private phone to that SIM.

Re:H20 wireless or similar

[Lawrence_Bird]

you have to select the pay as you go option. activating the sim will give you a new phone number which you may then toss when you are done with your time in the US. I would suggest forwarding your old phone to the temporary number or telling those from where ever it is you are coming from that do need to still contact you the temporary number.

Not so fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see all these idiots saying "buy a pre-paid SIM" but there's a catch. When You activate the phone, the phone company needs your name, address, etc. This is (unconstitutionally) required by the US Patriot Act.

The real question is: what companies are not going to pitch a fit when You are just back from overseas?

Why is this hard?

[nurb432]

Get an unlocked phone that has a sim socket.. Buy prepay sim cards off the shelf.. at anything from a drugstore, grocery to a kiosk at the mall. I have even seen them at gas stations lately..

All done. ( for the US anyway, i assume Canada has stores that sell them too )

And if you want to be really fancy, get one of those multi-band dual socket china phones. ( i have one, it can do both at&T/t-mobile style GSM and Verizon CDMA.... *at the same time* even... )

Go to Utah

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a vending machine next to a data center there, put in USD$10 or BTC equivelant for your very own SIM card no questions asked. Just ignore the pinprick when you go to pull out the card. The card you get will be NSA certified to be Unmonitored(tm).

Re:Go to Utah

[Anonymous Coward]

no questions asked

Umm... I dare to ask a question.

Does this SIM card even work?

Prepaid sims...

[Bert64]

The UK system of vending machines in the airport is extremely convenient (and the vending machines typically support a bunch of languages and different network sims too), i wish other countries did something similar...

You can buy prepaid sims in most countries but often not in the airport, and quite often the pricing will only be displayed in the local language etc so it can be hard to work out what you're actually getting for your money (and quite easy to get ripped off in the small phone shops).

I just want a cheap prepaid sim that the people i'm visiting can call me on, and with a decent data allowance so i can use google maps etc. It would also be extremely convenient if you could buy them before you travel and have them shipped to you.

Re:Prepaid sims...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, get a GiffGaff SIM. You can either buy a monthly 'goodybag' with data and minutes - various prices depending on what you need, eg. £12 for 250 minutes + unlimited data good for 30 days, or ju lstoad some credit which is then good until you have used it up at 10p/minute for calls, but irritatingly expensive for data.

Don't know if they will ship the sim internationally.

at&t offering

[Anonymous Coward]

my friend if visiting from india this month and needed something short-term for "hey i'm ready, come pick me up" kinda calls. He had a iphone 4 (unlocked because they are pretty much all unlocked outside the US).

Walked into AT&T retail store. showed ID and for $25 for a SIM, new phone number and 250 minutes; data is $0.01/5kB (really) (thats $10 for 5MB)

Thank God you wern't travelling to India

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting a Sim Card seems to require you to give up the soul of your unborn child.
They say it is because a bomber blew up a train using a mobile phone.
The horse has bolted and they are trying to shut the stable door.
All I need repeat the event is to use a foreign 'burner' phone.

No roaming on some networks

[RotateLeftByte]

My carrier '3' has a deal where calls & texts in the US come out of my UK 10GBP/Month deal.
That's right, no roaming.....

I was over there last month and it seems that you have to use the 'T-Mobile' network. This is fine in the Cities but in many areas there was only AT&T or no signal at all. I was in the Rockies so this might not be the case for other parts on the US.

This has to be the way forward for all networks. Now if only I could get rid of roaming charges in India and other countries that I visit on a regular basis
   

Do actually need 24/7 coverage?

[houghi]

If you have network connection on most of the places you go and you have a smartphone, you could just use VoIP. I use http://www.poivy.com/en/index.... whenever I am not in Belgium and it works great for me.
There are many more out there. I do not need an incoming number, but there will be VoIP providers who have that as well.

Prices will vary depending on the country you come from. Using your own server at home might also be an option.

Freephoneline

[Deliveranc3]

Get Freephoneline. Pick up a sim with Data.

Idiot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of making a post on /. to garner the support of the anti-America circle jerk, how about you use Google and answer your question in less than 15 seconds?

Fucking morons...

consumer cellular

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a "consumer cellular" SIM at Sears. They resell AT&T. Good prices and no telecom attitude.

Straight Talk and Nexus 5 D820

[Zeio]

I have used Straight Talk for years. They sell BYOP activation kits. It comes with 4 sim card and a CDMA activation code. micro/nano AT&T, micro/nano T-Mobile. I use AT&T Straight Talk.

With the Nexus 5 you take the micro AT&T, and you get unlimited talk, text and data (up to 3GB on 4G, the rest on a throttle) for 45/mo. Its also got LTE as well as HSPA+/HSDPA.

There is a 60/mo plan that allows SMS and calls to international numbers if you need it.

I prepay a year at a time and get this for $495 for 12 months.

I use a rental SIM when traveling to Japan from here ( http://jcrcorp.com/mobile/mobi... ) . Europe I've used Swisscom prepaid.

Anyways, the Nexus 5 D820 seems to go everywhere and work.

Amazon

[John.Banister]

If you're planning ahead, some vendors on Amazon sell sim cards, including Net10 sim cards, international sim cards, and others. I believe that if you have an Amazon account anywhere, your login works in Amazon for any other country (My only experience is having an account in USA and buying stuff on Amazon.de). If you have the card before you leave, that is simplest and provides the most functionality. Then, if you want to shop for a sim card with a better rate, your phone will be working while you do so. Or, an airtime vendor like wirelessrefill.com might be able to sell you airtime at a better rate for the first card.

AT&T, $40 micro-SIM with 500MB data

[Athanasius]

I bought an AT&T micro-SIM for my Samsung Galaxy S3 for $40 in May this year. That came with 500MB of data, there are other plans as well. If I'd loaded it up with enough there was some advantage if I was planning on spending more time in the USA within the year.

I simply walked into an AT&T store in Hollywood, asked, and got great service.

The only issue was when in some small towns that only had service from some other provider (I think it was Page AZ which only had CellularOne).

You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Mobile is a bring-your-own-phone service company. Simply purchase a SIM card from them, plop it into your phone, and you are off and running.
There is no annual contract.

Re:frist! best option is to stay where you are

[Eunuchswear]

I'm debating whether to give this +1 funny or +1000 insightful

Re:Instead of posting an article

[radarskiy]

"go read a wiki page."

A relevant example of which would be...?

Re:I don't think I could get a SIM card there

[radarskiy]

I have never once seem SIMs for sale in person anywhere in the US. This of course is not necessarily a representative of all locations, but it shoudl at least explain why some people find this to be a difficult question to answer and why they would appreciate someone who could answer it.

Re:Instead of posting an article

[St.Creed]

"go read a wiki page."

A relevant example of which would be...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... :)

Speak Out!

[patchouly]

Try the 7-11 "Speak Out" sim card. The sim card is $10 and can be used in most modern phones. Then you buy minute cards. The best part is instead of the minutes only being active for one month, they are good for a whole year. So, buy a $25 card and you have an emergency phone that has minutes for a year.

Drop into a Best Buy

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll cost you $15 or so, but you can get a SIM for multiple carriers (check the frequencies of your phone, match these against U.S. carriers, and get the right one).

Some (say, Net10 or other MVNOs) offer unlimited everything for reasonable rates ($40/50) on a per-month basis, though you may have to go online rather than use top-up cards.

You won't find vending machines, and you won't see them at most grocery stories. You'll need to go to an electronics/mobile store.

Get sim card in mail now with 10 min for 10 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/sim-card

Canada prepaid

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada has SpeakOut 7-Eleven® http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/

Virgin mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/ $35 monthly unlimited text and data with 300 voice minutes. Why do you need a subscriber identity module card?? Keep the the cell phone in case you return to the United States of America again. No need to throw away the $150 smart phone and charger. Or am I missing something?

Might not be that hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming the OP has a relatively recent (and not SIM locked) handset, getting service in the US should be a matter of buying a "BYOP" SIM card. All the pre-paid carriers offer them these days. Biggest issue is getting the right size. Not sure if you'll be able to get one at the airport, but any big box store, as well as many local drug stores and convenience stores can get you hooked up. The carriers' websites also generally have an IMEI/MEID/whatever the ESN is called this month checker to verify the OP's phone will be compatible. As for which provider to use, Sprint and Verizon are out, as their networks use bespoke phones that don't use SIM's. Their BYOP plans, such as they are, revolve around re-use of an existing same-carrier-locked phone. AT&T and T-Mobile, in contrast, both offer BYOP plans that should be effective for the OP. Their are also numerous other carriers offering SIM-only service. In most cases, these will be MNVO's piggy-backing on one of the major carriers (or in the case of Tracfone's brands, all the major carriers).

How to survive canadian billing.

[Anonymous Coward]

IN CANADA, My advice, unlock your phone. Walk into a telus store, get a sim card. Pay 11.25$ for 10$ of some credit, get an unlimited txt messaging plan and YOUR DONE. if you *need* to talk pay the extra and get some minutes. Unless your a gabby gabbby woman, i wouldnt even bother with a plan. i dont pay for sh!t. Which brings me to data plans in canada. dont. dont consider it, dont look at it, pretend it doesnt exist. there are plenty of starbucks and mcdonalds kickin around to skype and facebook off of, unless you like paying 80$ a month for a couple megabytes, then that is your prerogative.

Re:How to survive canadian billing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Telus service sucks donkey balls. Big donkey balls hitting the chin of Telus even as we post on /.

Don't get T-Mobile - coverage is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently doing a trip in the middle of the country, and coverage of T-Mobile is very bad in at least WY,CO and NM. I see At&t and some unknown local carrier, but no T-mobile on any rural GSM mast I drive by. Waste of money unless you stay in a city. There it works nicely.

Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

This "ask slashdot" is just a thinly veiled troll.

prepaidphonenews.com has info on MVNOs

[quixote9]

To be cheap and cheerful in the US you need an MVNO that works on the GSM networks here: ATT or T-Mo. dslreports.com is another good resource for user feedback in the forums about the services. I have lycamobile, which would be expensive if you're a heavy data user. It uses T-Mo, which is fine where I am (Los Angeles), but coverage can be spotty. Don't know anything about Canada.

Watch out for the gotchas

[Shirley Marquez]

T-Mobile service offers good prices, but there are a couple of catches to watch out for.

1. If you have a non-US phone that does not offer AWS band (1700 and 2100 MHz) coverage, you will not be able to get 3G data service in smaller cities (the ones that do not yet have LTE service). T-Mobile originally operated HSPA+ on that band; more recently they moved it to 1900 MHz (reducing or eliminating EDGE service to make room) and operate LTE on the AWS frequencies.

2. Most retail outlets only have the full size SIMs. If you need a micro or nano SIM you will probably have to order it from T-Mobile. You might be able to get one at a T-Mobile company store. Other places that sell prepaid T-Mobile stuff (drug stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack) won't have them. One other way to get a micro SIM is to buy a Lumia 521, an inexpensive Windows 8 phone.

General comments that apply to bringing any GSM phone to any US carrier: you need a quad-band phone (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) phone to get anywhere at all. LTE probably won't work with your non-US phone.

H2O Wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have an unlocked phone, you can use H2O Wireless. They're pay-as-you go with no contract. I use their $40/month plan that gives me unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 1 GB data. I think the data rate is slower than what I had with T-Mobile, but it's less than half the price of my old T-Mobile plan.

Re:I don't think I could get a SIM card there

[Anonymous Coward]

These low-volume items generally do not result in a huge amount of profit for the store. Consequently, they aren't just sitting out on the shelves. However, they must have some SIMs in the store if they are able to sell new phones.

They generally cost $20ish or less. Now, assuming that you do have the funds readily available, the next step for acquiring a SIM card will require a magnificent feat of bravery... You need to go to the employee and... ... ask!

Re:I don't think I could get a SIM card there

[radarskiy]

"You need to go to the employee and... ... ask!"

Ask? That's crazy talk!