Recommendations for pre-paid cell phone service for calling SPs?

[RobinX]

What are the current recommendations for pre-paid cell phone service for calling SPs? From the posts I have read, the recommended services have been Virgin Mobility in Quebec and 7-11 in the ROC. Has anything changed now that there are new providers in the market - Koodo, Petro-Canada, Public, etc? Or, are Virgin Mobility and 7-11 still the best options?

 

[YouVantOption]

What are the current recommendations for pre-paid cell phone service for calling SPs? From the posts I have read, the recommended services have been Virgin Mobility in Quebec and 7-11 in the ROC. Has anything changed now that there are new providers in the market - Koodo, Petro-Canada, Public, etc? Or, are Virgin Mobility and 7-11 still the best options?

Fido is fine, you can pay as little as $15/month or even less to keep the line live (I'd guess charging it every 90 days will do), and you can roam, more or less with it. I'm guessing calling away from your home city would cost a bit more, but who cares? It isn't like the discussion needs to be particularly long.

 

[EagerBeaver]

I inquired about this on my last trip to Montreal at a local Walmart. I was told to purchase a Motorola prepaid phone in the US and get two SIM cards. When I get to Canada I can purchase a prepaid SIM card for $100 which gives me minutes at 30 cents per minute with a 1 year expiration. The alternative for me is to pay roaming charges of about $1.50 per. My guess is it is the same deal for locals- except with the $100 they may give you a phone as well.

Check out the Walmart in LaSalle, there is a very knowledgeable guy working there in the electronics department.

 

[Ricky bonds]

why do you need a prepaid to call girls......
but if you need one .....go for public mobile....40$ a month unlimited in and out..,..
fido prepaid ...at 1$ a day unlimited incall.or 1$ a day unlimited nights and weekends...

 

[RobinX]

why do you need a prepaid to call girls......

In answer to your question here is a posting that I copied from somewhere regarding this issue:

Personally I hate the idea that agency owners, SPs and others can store my phone numbers. I know most of them are OK but the potential damage is immense.

How can you protect yourself.

Buy a phone from Virgin VirginMobileCanada. Buy a Virgin calling card . Pay cash for both. Some convenience stores resell Virgin phones. They have less traces. Activate the phone from an Internet Cafe . Create from that internet cafe a hotmail addy. Enter bogus info when you sign up. Make sure you use the email addy you just created. Tracing you will be next to impossible.

 

[Rusty Staub]

Forgive my ignorance, but would a Net10 or TMobileToGo prepaid bought in the US work in Montreal?

 

[sinbad]

I use a cell phone on a calling card (Bell Canada). Works fine, and costs less than $15 per month if I keep calls to a minimum. I top up via the phone and my credit card is automatically debited. There's no paper trail to worry about. HOWEVER, when I set up the account, Bell required my personal info., so the phone could be traced back to me. Is there a simple way (in Quebec) of buying a phone and activating it without giving personal info? I read RobinX's post re: internet cafes etc. but it seems very complicated.

sinbad

 

[RobinX]

I started looking into Virgin Mobility pre-paid cell phone service. The guy at the La Source outlet I visited told that, even if one pays cash, to activate the phone in-store requires showing two pieces of ID. Presumably, the info is recorded and is then tied to your new cell phone (number). I checked the terms of agreement on the Virgin Mobility website. They indicate that, when activating a phone online, one needs to provide a credit card number ONLY IF you are paying the activation fee by credit card. Since the activation fee is waived for pre-paid cell phone service, this does not apply. The terms of agreement also indicate that to activate a phone online one must provide your name and contact info. If they accept a valid email address as contact info, then you can provide an email address, with a fake name, created just for this purpose. However, I cannot confirm that this is the only info they request, because you cannot get to the website's activation menu without entering a valid cell phone serial number -ie. you can only find out after buying a phone, unless there is someone out there who has Virgin Mobility cell phone service who can confirm this info.

 

[GTA refugee]

There are new cell phone carriers on the market, the deals will soon show up because the back to school season for the cell phone companies. Look for deals just before back to school days.