I travel to the US a few times a year on business and generally stay for 2-3 weeks at a time.
I am disgusted by the current offerings of Rogers when it comes to US travel packs... Data plans that expire in 7 days, etc... I've had to purchase 3 travel packs for my last 2.5 week stay for data alone, then add txt and phone and you still end up with a ridiculous bill.
Are there any here that do the same? What are the current options when it comes to this other then the crap they offer on a pay-as-you go basis.
Heck you can't even forward your phone without getting charged long distance.
If you have a business account call in and ask for the roaming packages that last for 30 days
or
unlock your phone and get a sim in the US
It is a business account... interesting I wasn't aware they still had 30 day packages that way.
That said, it's still ridiculous how much they gouge us if I compare how it is in Europe.
Also I've thought about getting a US SIM, but I would still have to forward phone calls to the US number (which still costs money per forwarded call for some reason), txt messages will not come though.... BBM and BES will not work either.
It is a business account... interesting I wasn't aware they still had 30 day packages that way.
That said, it's still ridiculous how much they gouge us if I compare how it is in Europe.
Also I've thought about getting a US SIM, but I would still have to forward phone calls to the US number (which still costs money per forwarded call for some reason), txt messages will not come though.... BBM and BES will not work either.
Well, forwarding incoming calls to a LD number would still probably be far cheaper than using roaming minutes. ETM allows you to copy incoming messages to US numbers (US texting rates I think) or to email and allows you to set a SMS signature that perhaps provides your US number for direct texting, and you could reply from your US number. BBM and BES would be out. All very convoluted I guess. Works for me, but I don't travel there for business and my plan allows a lot of flexibility for US calling, forwarding and texting.
Probably your best option is to find out about the longer term roaming rates, unfortunately.
Carrier unlocked iPhone 4
Unlimited airtime, Unlimited CAN/US long distance, Unlimited SMS to CAN/US wireless numbers
2500 Call Forwarding minutes to CAN/US numbers
CiD, 6GB
Google Voice for visual voice mail with message transcription, conditional greetings, unlimited messages (vs 35 message cap), remote retrieval from any PC or phone, no auto-purge after 10 days and most importantly no $7-$8 charge.
They are still available for business customers. But only the ones for one month at a time.
It was explained to me that call forwarding costs because in effect you are calling the phone that you are forwarding to.
Get a T-Mobile prepaid SIM. $2 a day for unlimited voice and data.
Get a voip.ms account with a Canadian DID. Forward that DID to your US number, and then foward your Rogers number to the voip.ms DID.
Log in to the "Rogers Extreme Text Messaging" portal and forward your texts to your US number (or email address).
If you need to do a lot of calling from the US back to Canada, you can use voip.ms to accomplish this with a US DID, or something like Skype-to-go.
And voila. Unlimited Calling in the US and Canada. And you will receive calls on your US number and Canadian number for free, AND you will get all your texts. All of this UNLIMITED calling/texting will cost you about what it would cost to make one 2-3 minute call while in the US.
Get a T-Mobile prepaid SIM. $2 a day for unlimited voice and data.
Get a voip.ms account with a Canadian DID. Forward that DID to your US number, and then foward your Rogers number to the voip.ms DID.
Log in to the "Rogers Extreme Text Messaging" portal and forward your texts to your US number (or email address).
If you need to do a lot of calling from the US back to Canada, you can use voip.ms to accomplish this with a US DID, or something like Skype-to-go.
And voila. Unlimited Calling in the US and Canada. And you will receive calls on your US number and Canadian number for free, AND you will get all your texts. All of this UNLIMITED calling/texting will cost you about what it would cost to make one 2-3 minute call while in the US.
The only hole here is the ETM forwarding. It can only forward to Rogers network numbers, so you would have to use the Copy function. This makes all texts appear to come from your Rogers number. I am not sure what they would look like if you did forward to email. I added a SMS signature that asked people texting me to include their name in the text and to expect a reply from my US number. It's not ideal, but it works. Probably not great for a business line if you get texts from customers.
Regardless, I usually just copy my texts to my email address anyway. Since I have unlimited data with my T-Mobile SIM and push email, I get the texts immediately.
The emails also include the number of the person who sent the text, so it works perfectly and is completely free.
we have just launched a company allows SIP calls over wifi. You could forward all your mobile calls to a local Canadian number and receive them for free while travelling over Wifi. You do need a real smartphone though: Apple or Android. It also works over 3G/4G, but check your data roaming prices before you make these calls. Our unlimited Canada/USA plan is $27.99. Search on diwiphone. I hope this helps?
umm.... there are already plenty of SIP clients for android/iphone, and a voip provider like voip.ms is much cheaper (a few $). and of course they all work over wifi
heck you could even just use the skype app with a skype incoming number for much less. also works over wifi
If you have unlimited 3G data then you can use many free calling over 3G... You probably need iPhone, Android
Google Voice - US number - talkatone (iOS), Groove IP (Android) - free North America long distance call
Dell Voice - Canadian number - free Canada long distance call
Vonage Mobile - unknown number - free North America long distance call
Nettalk - unknown number - free North America long distance call
or maybe the roammobility.com will be easier because they let you callback to Canada free
I like this cheap way to keep the SIM card active. We only have to buy 1 day plan, cost $2 to keep SIM card active for another year.
What happens to my Roam SIM Card if I let it expire?
As long as you use Roam's service once a year, your SIM card and dedicated US phone number will remain active. After 365 days of inactivity, your Roam SIM card and US phone number will expire.
To use Roam's service again, you will have to purchase a new Roam SIM Card for use in your own device or to put into your Liberty or Breeze. After you activate online and purchase a plan, upon entering the US, your new US phone number will be sent to you via text and email message.
If you think you might not travel that often, but want to keep your dedicated US number, all you need to do is purchase a 1 day plan before the expiry date. You do not have to travel to keep your number active. You can check the expiry date by signing in to your account and checking the My Devices page.
Get a ATT&T prepaid phone $2.00 per day when you use the phone for unlimited calls while in the us to any where in the us, $10 will get you 250 minutes for calls back to Canada we bought 2 of them and the service is great and a lot cheaper then paying Rogers roaming charges. $100 airtime card is good for a year so you only need to add money once a year to retain the number.
You can even use the phone in Canada at .39 cents per minute roaming (even that is cheaper then Rogers)
North America Unlimited Calling
Retention Voicemail + CID
6GB DATA
^^^^ you would be best to add a little data and use google voice to call back to canada for free or pop in to any starbucks or mcdonalds and use there free wifi
^^^^ you would be best to add a little data and use google voice to call back to canada for free or pop in to any starbucks or mcdonalds and use there free wifi
Can do that without data. Call your GV number, enter your passcode and you can have it dial to any US/Canada number for free. No VOIP sound problems, just a straight voice call.
Get a T-Mobile prepaid SIM. $2 a day for unlimited voice and data.
Get a voip.ms account with a Canadian DID. Forward that DID to your US number, and then foward your Rogers number to the voip.ms DID.
Log in to the "Rogers Extreme Text Messaging" portal and forward your texts to your US number (or email address).
If you need to do a lot of calling from the US back to Canada, you can use voip.ms to accomplish this with a US DID, or something like Skype-to-go.
And voila. Unlimited Calling in the US and Canada. And you will receive calls on your US number and Canadian number for free, AND you will get all your texts. All of this UNLIMITED calling/texting will cost you about what it would cost to make one 2-3 minute call while in the US.
Interesting way of doing it... and actually I tried to forward my cell phone to my voip.ms number (647 #), then turned off my cell radio... I was getting just a busy signal when calling my cell phone number though (my phone was on wifi and the SIP connection to voip.ms was working as I could call out). Didn't have time to deal with it down there so I reactivated my cell radio and took off the forwarding.
I also don't have RETM as far as I know.. my plan is a pretty sold retentions plan that I haven't changed in a few years now.
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Originally Posted by TheLastPrincess
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