Cell phone decisions

[sylorna]

Hey there!
I have some serious cell phone decisions to make.
I am canadian, and am currently with Virgin pay as you go. I just got accepted to an internship in Buffalo (yippie!) and will be commuting back and forth over the border daily. I talked to the people at Virgin and they said the pay as you go wont work over the border because Bell does not have towers there.

I could either:
Get a Rogers phone over here and have it available as emergency only ($2.49/min to canada from the states, .40 per text message sent)
or get a second phone from somewhere like AT&T
(.50/min to canada and no roaming, .25 per text sent/.20 per text received)

The advantage to the rogers is that I could keep the phone/plan after the internship, the advantage to the second phone would be that I might pay less for text messaging/phone calls.

What do you think? Can you come up with a better plan maybe?

 

[laureen227]

if the new phone will be your only means of communicating w/Canada, then it would depend on how often you plan to do that.
also, if you're not planning on getting a land line, & you'll be moving to Buffalo, that would make a difference, as well.

 

[sylorna]

Well, I don't know if I will be permitted to call to Canada from the hospital where I will be working.
And no, I will be going over the border every day.

 

[februa]

Im on Virgin pay as you go. My phone has worked while roaming in the US (Buffalo specifically on a shopping trip from Toronto, and in Milwaukee WI) so Im not sure why yours wouldnt? Mind you, we are discussing some steep charges for roaming on pay as you go. Im switching to Solo mobile because I want the Samsung Cleo. I have already spoken to them about occasional roaming, and they assure me it will work in major metropolitan areas - but will cost more because of actually connecting to american network.
Since solo is owned by Bell...I think you may have just spoken to the wrong person at Virgin! If you are close by, try visiting the US casino for a trip or something and see if yours works (I presume it will, as mine did).

Good luck!

 

[sylorna]

That's good to know!
I talked to a man who sells unlocked phones today and asked his opinion. He thinks I should buy one from AT&T over the boarder.
Any idea how much you paid for roaming? I might not bother getting something different if it works

 

[ut0pia]

That's a really hard situation lol. You could get a US phone but then wouldn't you be troubled carrying around two phones?? That would be my problem if I were you. Because you can always get a pay as you go phone from the US, it's strange that the Virgin phone won't work, we have virgin here too....

 

[sylorna]

Yeah, the virgin phones here run off of Bell towers, which I'm told by my partner are old technology that the states doesn't have anymore. I don't know why it makes a difference if I'm on a plan vs pay as you go though...that doesn't make sense!

 

[icklemiss21]

I had a Virgin phone and it worked fine in Buffalo as it still picked up the Niagara Falls towers - but I guess it depends how far you are going into Buffalo too.

Is the AT&T / Rogers one on plans, how long will you be doing the internship? Its not really worth agreeing to a plan that maybe no good for you after the internship.

Virgin's MyPlan has phones that do roam in the US according to their website so maybe just ask Virgin if you can go onto a monthly plan?

Where will you be living?

 

[sylorna]

No, AT&T and Rogers would be pay as you go.

I live in Welland