Originally Posted by
LegalTender
Has anyone noticed that Canadian cell signals work on flight climb outs and landings, whereas US carriers don't? (I have T-Mobile in the States which allows roaming on Bell.)
I was stunned that I could text and surf more than two minutes out of YUL today.
Different frequency spectrum?
In Canada, LTE, and 4G is provisioned heavily on the 900/2100MHz channels basically everywhere (by Bell/Telus/SaskTel), with only minor 2600Mhz overlays. T-Mobile is a more heavy user of the 2600MHz frequency, and with lower powers in the denser US centers due to the fact that they have so many more towers.
So your device probably reverted to the 900MHz band, to maintain connectivity. With T-Mobile, they may very well not have had a 900MHz roaming partner or tower wherever you were.
(and yes, you really should follow the safety briefings which prohibit in-flight use of such devices, by inhibiting their operation accordingly with the "airplane mode" feature!).