Taking cellphone to the US

Anyone got a suggestion on the best way to go about this? I only ever use my own personal cell phone when I'm in the US and Rogers is raping me on the call charges. I thought about getting one in the US but the per month charges are higher, so basically I seem to have the option of paying more per month and getting cheaper calls or paying less per month and getting mugged by Rogers.

Because I only use it in the US I don't use it a huge amount so the whizzbang "pay a ton of money and we'll let you use it a lot" plans aren't really viable.

Get a "disposable Cell phone" (a la CSI and Law and Order), they range from 20-50 dollars for the phone and some airtime, you can get them at a grocery store or Wal-Mart or anywhere else like that. Rates can be pretty good, we had a Net10 and they had pretty good rates to Canada too once you activeate it, only 5 cents a minute more, but you had to dial a 1-800-number to get them (not a big deal). The phone isn't great but it works, and for the price you can't beat it.

Some differnt brands are:
Tracphone - not great but it works
Virgin - supposedly good but not where we are in Nevada
Net10 - the best we had, they had the 5c Canada long distance, but i put the phone through the washing machine...

I always find there's some catch with those PAYG phones though, like you have to buy so many minutes a month to keep it activated. Although looking at the Tracfone website it's not that onerous, thanks for the info.

And why did I post this under immigration, meh.

Maybe your phone is going to immigrate...The tracphone you can get a card that will make your minutes good for a year, but it is 400-1000 minutes or something (10c a minute), I can not remember. Our Net10 phone minutes were good for 3 months before we had to add more. Verizon's pay as you go isn't that great I have been told.

As a customer, I can say Verizon is terrible on its InPulse plan. The old 'easy-pay' plan was better even though you HAD to pay the amount monthly. It gave you internet access and all the bells and whistles.

The pros; You can pay as little as 15.00 to add time to your phone. Whenever. 100.00 is good for a year (depending on your usage out of network of course)The old plan was increments of 50.00 or 70.00. Calls to other Verizon customers are free. Coverage is pretty decent.

The cons; There's a range of phones you can pick from if you go to a Verizon store, but you pay full retail. If you have a text package, that adds on another 10.00 EACH TIME you load money to your phone. So, if you were to load your 15.00, they take 10.00 for the text package and leave you with 5.00 for out-of-network calls. The spin is you only pay for days you use and that amount varies by how much your access plan is, they start at .99/day. Calls to Canada are a little pricey, I try to get people to call me back, then it's only .10/minute. Everything extra is "a la carte".

There are three tiers of pricing, take a look and see which best fits your needs.

T-Mobile - yuck. Tried it, hated the service.

Sprint has a decent plan (50.00/month /-) but you have to go to a Sprint store to get it. It is on contract, however (2yrs) but they don't require a SSN to get it. This allows you to build credit with them this way and you can get lots of the regular perks with it not normally offered by pre-pay plans. My daughter who is a student in the states uses this and is pretty happy with it. If can keep a student happy, it must be good, lol.

When I first moved to the US and wasn't sure what plan I wanted, I got the T-mobile pay as you go service. In major centres their coverage is quite good and compared to the competition their rates are very attractive.

If your phone is unlocked then consider a pay as you go SIM from them.

I was thinking of Verizon to be honest because Verizon are the only company with a network of any consequence in Montana. I'm sure one of the reasons I get hit with such high roaming charges is because Rogers use ATT and ATT don't have their own network in Montana. T-mobile seems to have a similar problem going by their website.

I suppose the logical thing to do is get a PAYG phone from a third-party provider like Tracfone and see how long the card lasts.

I think Verizon has a pay as you go plan now. I noticed some poster about something to that effect when I was in Circuit City yesterday.

You can check their website and put in the zip code for where you'll be using it most to find out if the service is available in that area

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/stor ... prepayItem

Mmm, it looks to me as though it costs the same as Tracfone for the PAYG card, the difference is that you pay an activation fee and more for the phone, but on the other hand you get a better handset. I suppose at least I would be dealing directly with Verizon and I know they cover Montana. Cheaper than going on their regular monthly plan at any rate, so I guess I'll give it a try.

Thanks everyone.

I just picked up another Tracphone card, it was 30 dollars for 90 minutes and the minutes were good for 3 months if you didn't use them. They had a 400 minute card for $100 and the minutes were good for a year.