Phones - Roaming/Compatibility
 

I live in Australia and have a dual band phone (900/1800) - a Nokia 2610 on a GSM network.

I am studying in Canada for a semester and it is a requirement of my uni that I have either a landline or cell phone contact.

From my understanding, even with international roaming on my phone (really my SIM card), my phone wouldn't work in Canada or US because they are on 850/1900.

Is this correct? I'm confused to how roaming works - I understand it uses the international network (Rogers/Fido) to connect back to my Australian network. An explanation would be appreciated (googling confuses me more because it is often written for Europe/US conpatibility).

My plan, therefore, is to buy a prepaid phone in Canada (trying to get a quad band phone) with a Canadian SIM card that I can also put my Australian SIM card into.

Any recommedations for Canadian phone companies? For GSM, Rogers and Fido are my only options. I realise Rogers owns Fido. For coverage (I will be based in a large uni town in Southern Ontario with a lot of German heritage), which would be best? Would it be silly to go with Fido as they seem to have the nicer (and cheaper) prepaid phones? With the range on both their websites, is there more range in the shop or am I better buying online?

Also, has anyone triedTelestial

Thanks for your help.

You are correct about Canada's GSM carriers using 850 and 1900 MHz exclusively (just like in the USA). See www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_ca.shtml

Also, although often quite lame posts, sometimes good information can be found on www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=326

Note that the North American prepaid terms are quite different from the North American contract terms.

850/1900 MHz phones are quite inexpensive here in the USA. I've even got some new and unlocked extras that I'm about to list on eBay. If you're not too fussy, the need for quad may not be needed.

And regarding Telestial, their rates have always looked outrageous to me.

I know I shouldn't say anything considering I'm on a travel forum but gosh I didn't realise there was such intense discussion about mobile phone deals.
I thought if I'm buying a new phone over there when I don't really need one, I might as well get one I can also use back home too.
Good to hear someone else thought so too. I thought the prices seemed high but I couldn't be sure (retail prices etc in the US).

Thanks for your help roberto99

There are three things you need to have in order for roaming to work:

1) you need to have a handset with the frequencies in the country you want to visit -- as you correctly point out, this is 850/1900 in Canada. If you want the SAME phone to ALSO work in Australia (which uses 900/1800) you need a tri (900/1800/1900) or a quad (850/900/1800/1900) handset.

2) you need to have an unlocked handset or a handset locked to the carrier you want to use. With an unlocked handset, you can insert your Australian SIM while you are in Australia and a Canadian SIM while you are in Canada. Your current handset MAY be locked to your Australian carrier. A pre-paid handset from Fido or Rogers is definitely locked only to them, and it may not be easy to get it unlocked (however, with persistence you can get it done). This means it will work fine in Canada, and it will work fine in Australia IF you are roaming there using your Canadian SIM, but NOT if you want to use your Australian SIM with it.

3) Your carrier needs to have a roaming agreement with the visited carrier. In your case, no big deal -- both Rogers and Fido have roaming with Telstra, etc. You asked how it works -- when you switch on your Telstra phone in Ottowa, the Fido network identifies it as a Telstra SIM. It sends a query back to the Telstra core network, and receives a reply saying "OK", and it lets you on to the network, and sends a signal back to Telstra informing the network where you are. Any call that come to your number are then forwarded from Telstra to Fido. Every few weeks, Fido sends an encrypted file with your calling records back to Telstra, which they import into their billing system so they can bill you.

Rogers has more coverage throughout Canada, but both networks have excellent coverage in Southern Ontario, and FIDO is cheaper and has better features, so I would go with FIDO in your case.

My GSM phone worked fine there. For a whole semester, just buy a pre paid, it'll be far cheaper.

Here's a bit of an alternate view. Telstra have recently started rolling out 3G/HSDPA at 850Mhz which is the same as here in North America (although it doesn't exist yet in Canada). So that opens up quite a few phones for you that wouldn't work otherwise. A favorite is the AT&T A717 which is quadband+3G. Remains to be seen whether the browser can be reconfigured though. The Nokia N75 CAN be reconfigured.

Dual band 3G (Next G 850MHz/ 3G 1900 MHz) + Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz).

That should cover you!!

Samsung A501 Mobile