Cell phone use while in town....

[breadman]

Just spent some time with At&t and Cingular's customer service going over a variety of plans to help eliminate costly roaming fee's and extra charges for using a U.S. cell phone plan while in town. Also looking to keep those costly hotel charges for local calls down to a minimum.

Found the best deal at att....you have to have their national plan at 39.99 a month for 450 minutes. Then before your trip add on the option of canadian coverage for 9.99 a month. No roaming, no extra fee's besides the one listed above....any call you make locally or to the U.S. go against your minutes on the plan.

And after you return you can cancel your canadian coverage....and re-apply at any time.

 

[breadman]

Talked with the cingular customer service...they have a similiar service but it is much more expensive. I was quoted 59.99 compared to Att's 39.99. They gave me an option to take the 39.99 plan plus 5.99 per month to include canada but would charge .19 cents per minute while your in canada.

gtadick...verizon's deal has the exact same coverage as att's. will verizon allow you to cancel the 9.99 monthly charge if your not going to be in canada? With att you only have to pay the 9.99 when you plan on being in canada.

 

[breadman]

My att is 39.99 for 450 minutes and 5,000 nights/weekends....plus the 9.99 to add canada for one month. For those who visit a couple of times per year this is a very good plan.

 

[Special K]

Cingular Customers

Just spent some time with At&t and Cingular's customer service going over a variety of plans to help eliminate costly roaming fee's and extra charges for using a U.S. cell phone plan while in town. Also looking to keep those costly hotel charges for local calls down to a minimum.

Found the best deal at att....you have to have their national plan at 39.99 a month for 450 minutes. Then before your trip add on the option of canadian coverage for 9.99 a month. No roaming, no extra fee's besides the one listed above....any call you make locally or to the U.S. go against your minutes on the plan.

And after you return you can cancel your canadian coverage....and re-apply at any time.

Unless you're a previous AT&T user this deal is useless. Since AT&T has been taken over by Cingular they don't offer this particular service to their new customers or previous Cingular customers. When I signed up for Cingular I got the $39.99/1000 minute's a month plan. That's it, nothing else. I never come close to using 1000 minutes so I figured that'd be fine. I went to Montreal a couple weeks after purchasing this plan and when I got home and received my new bill the total was $145.00 due to roaming fees incurred while away. I didn't realize that I'd spent anywhere near close to that much time on my cell phone when I was there, but even calls you don't answer count as received calls.

I recently then switched to the Cingular North America plan for $59.99 which includes US, Canada and Mexico, and I believe 450 anytime minutes, 1000 night & weekend, and unlimited Cingular to Cingular minutes, all with rollover.

This goes into effect my next billing cycle which is 3 days prior to my next trip up North

 

[EagerBeaver]

Cingular Sucks!

Special K,

I hate to say I told you so but there was a prior thread in which I warned about that Cingular plan, and also warned that Cingular service sucks, especially if you live near the water...............Cingular customer service reps are trained to lie and tell you they are building cell towers to improve cellular service, but those towers will be built years and years from now, when my Cingular service will long since have been cancelled.

I have only used my cellphone in Montreal to call my office on a few occasions to put out fires that needed to be put out, I think once or twice to call Celine of Satin Dreamz for a booking on short notice, and perhaps once or twice to call Doc Holliday to find out where he was. I got whacked with the roamer charges and I believe it is about .79 cents a minute. But if you gotta call you gotta call. These companies, and Cingular in particular, do not offer practical plans and their service flat SUCKS.

 

[Special K]

I disagree EB

Special K,

I hate to say I told you so but there was a prior thread in which I warned about that Cingular plan, and also warned that Cingular service sucks, especially if you live near the water...............Cingular customer service reps are trained to lie and tell you they are building cell towers to improve cellular service, but those towers will be built years and years from now, when my Cingular service will long since have been cancelled.

I have only used my cellphone in Montreal to call my office on a few occasions to put out fires that needed to be put out, I think once or twice to call Celine of Satin Dreamz for a booking on short notice, and perhaps once or twice to call Doc Holliday to find out where he was. I got whacked with the roamer charges and I believe it is about .79 cents a minute. But if you gotta call you gotta call. These companies, and Cingular in particular, do not offer practical plans and their service flat SUCKS.

EB,

I disagree with you regarding the service area itself. At least in my case I have had very few dropped calls in the past month and my signal has been very strong in most places I've been including Montreal!

As for the charges, I do remember that thread, was aware of the charges, but didn't realize that I used my phone that much. Live and learn I suppose.

I will have no complaints about Cingular and will definitely recommend it once my rate plan is switched over soon.

 

[breadman]

Ive been happy with switching over to at&t from spint...called customer service to see what i could do to get a non roaming rate when in canada...low and behold cingular answered. They cant officially recommend a switchover to cingular, basically i was jotting down all the notes and found the cheapest way to go was by increasing my plan on at&t adding on canadian coverage during my trips only.

Definately wont go with cingular when its time to renew....maybe verizon if that deal is still in effect.

 

[donnyb]

breadman,

I hope you know that Cingular and ATT will be, if not already have become in some cases, the same company. Cingular purchased ATT about a year back, and have now begun to put the pieces in their places.

My guess is that soon, they will combine networks, and current ATT customers and current Cingular customers will be sharing networks, thus enabling free mobile to mobile conversations.

I am currently a Cingular customer, and I am hoping for this to take effect soon as I have always believed that ATT had better coverage than Cingular. Now, I could enjoy ATT's good coverage while maintaining the generous minute plan that I currently have.

 

[breadman]

Its my understanding that with the aquisition of att by cingular certain terms had to be met to have the deal go thru.... a certain amount of coverage had to be given away or sold. But dont want to get into semantics....

Lets just say at no time was i told that i should switch from att to cingular...at any time during the hour i was talking with tech support. Cingular might have a better minute rollover plan, but it looked to me that att had the better deal with canadian coverage. $$$$ vs. $$

 

[EagerBeaver]

Thread Update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are about 5-6 threads started on various issues relating to cellphones but since this one seemed most pertinent, I am posting in it, although it's been nearly 3 years since Breadman made the last post in this thread.

In that time, Cingular has merged with At&t. I recently called At&t to discuss my service and they are now offering a "World Traveller Plan" which is similar to what Breadman described in the first post. The basic At&t plan including the 450 anytime minutes is $39.99/month. If you travel to Canada (or anyplace else in the world, for that matter), and buy the "World Traveller Plan", you pay $5.99 before your trip and any calls you make back to the US or within the foreign country are 5 cents per minute. This added coverage can be activated before your trip and cancelled afterwards, so that you only pay the $5.99 extra in the month in which you are travelling.

It seems to me that certain U.S. hobbyists considering a trip abroad would be very well advised to consider this coverage..................

 

[EagerBeaver]

CCF,

What I said above is what At&t told me. You can keep the plan or cancel it after your trip. I would suggest you call At&t for further info.

 

[bond_james_bond]

I think it's best to buy a prepaid cell in Canada.

 

[happygolucky]

I did both. I have a AT&T/Cingular cell with the nationwide +Internation plan, and I just picked up a Virgin Mobile Pre-Paid cell phone, so I can have a local 514 number........... to give to all the drunk ladies that I meet at Thursdays! It turns out, if you buy $100 of minutes, the minutes don't expire for a year on Virgin, all other plans, the minutes expire each month.