[sandysan]

I'm going up to Canada in a week, and will plan to get a disposable SIM ( either Speak out or petrocan) which I understand use the rogers network. Are these still the choices for the el cheepo service?.

Another possibility to avoid roaming is to get a similicious sim, throw it into my 4G hotspot and then use wifi calling only from my phone . I spoke to tmobile, a call to canada from the us is 49 cents a minute, if I used the hotspot and wifi calling only, then calls physically from canada to other numbers in canada on WIFI ( no towers, no roaming) would also be 49 cents a minute and calls back home would just count for minutes. The advantage is that I get to keep my number and dont have to tell everyone the burner number, the disadvanatge is that I have to keep both charged and together at all times.

As we will be with family mostly, I really only need this for driving from one place to another so the hotspot can be in the car. has anyone tried something similar ?


EDIT: nevermind it appears that hotspots are excluded by similicious, I think this is a new restriction.

[raino]

Is texting/BBM/Whatsapp to replace phone calls an option? TMO has unlimited texts to US numbers (and unlimited 2G) if you're on a Simple Choice plan for free, but you have to make sure you're roaming on a partner carrier.

[sandysan]

bbm yes everything else, no. Im on the data plan ( 5GB data 100 min talk) and would simply switch to simple plan but if I do I cant switch back. My wife is pay as you go so I will probably just switch her phone to simple choice with the hotspot/free international calls no roaming and data and if I need to use my phone, I can leech of her hotspot.

The only question that is unresolved is whether the simple choicecredit check is a hard or soft pull. I asked and they said soft, but I've seen many people in the same boat who said it was a hard pull. if its soft then ill simply use it, we are not going to need a lot of calls or data and we dont have to buy a burner sim and text everyone our temporary cell number.