I have seen reports that the SIM will not work at all in the TOGGLE countries if you don't first get a local number before entering that country. So, you should at least go online, register, and get yourself an NL number before leaving. If you could log into a mobile network in Canada, your SIM would get an IMSI update and you should be good to go in NL.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by activation, now that I think of it. I turned it on and added some money to it online and it worked. The one that I have had a phone number already assigned, both on the SIM card holder, as well as on the back of the package. Do you have a number already?
I would also suspect that if you work at it you will be able to get onto a network in Canada. You would need to go to the place where you select networks in your phone. First choose automatic selection and leave the phone for half an hour and see if it registers with a GSM/UMTS network. If that doesn't work, you can select each network manually - from what I read you may have to select a network 4 times on some occasions because of roaming steering (the home carrier trying to push you to a particular roaming carrier.)
Apparently the roaming IMSI is from Vodafone NL, which is how the Canadian networks will see the SIM.
Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
Thanks for the heads up. Probably won't need to make calls the 1st 2 weeks but nice to be able to get incoming ones free.
Thanks again for that. So I just turn on the phone and let it do its usual thing and then get the phone number?
And again, one needs the local in-country number to get the in-country rates?
Yes, transaction went through with no problems.