Prepaid iPhone Calling in Canada

Gordon — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:27:04 +0000

Seven Eleven in Canada now has inexpensive prepaid calling for iPhones (unlocked GSM or unlocked CDMA) with SpeakOut Wireless. The SIM card is $10, and you also buy however many minutes you need. This is a voucher receipt you get from the cashier at Seven Eleven. I bought $25 worth from the Canadian Seven Eleven store. Once you have your SpeakOut SIM and your minutes voucher, you need to activate the SIM card online at SpeakOut Wireless. At their web site; setup an account with SpeakOut, enter your iphone’s IMEI number (Settings > About) and choose your desired location for your local Canadian phone number. If the SpeakOut cellular network is not displaying in the upper left corner of your iPhone after inserting the SIM, then you might need to restart your phone a few times to get the SpeakOut network established.

Note that SpeakOut’s SIM cards do not have the extra-small micro punch-out size. So if you have a newer iphone (4/4s), you have to shave it down to the micro size.

To activate the minutes you purchased, dial *818* plus the voucher number printed on your receipt. If you need additional minutes, buy more at the Seven Eleven store.

This SpeakOut prepaid solution does allow for data, but you should probably use WIFI while traveling in Canada, so turnoff the Cellular Data setting at the Settings > General > Network.

iPhone in Canada

Gordon — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:43:25 +0000

Rogers Prepaid SIM Card

I now have a SIM card for each country in North America. Recently, I used my unlocked iPhone in Canada with their local carrier; Rogers Wireless. Yes, the dreaded Canadian cellular iPhone ripoff, Rogers Wireless; with their still horrible customer service.
My original online research seemed to suggest that buying a cheap Canadian Seven-Eleven Nokia phone and pulling the SIM card from the Nokia was the cheapest avenue to procuring a Canadian GSM compatible SIM card for my iPhone. This was unnecessary. Rogers Wireless now sells prepaid SIM cards for $10. That makes getting the Canadian SIM card easy, but the prepaid minutes are still expensive, but cheaper than the commitment of a Roger’s iphone contract, which won’t work for travelers to Canada.
So after buying the $10 SIM card, you can purchase $20 worth of prepaid minutes from Rogers. That’s $30 bucks to have an iPhone in Canada with some minutes. The minutes from Rogers are expensive; 25 cents/minute for the first 5 minutes of each day, and thereafter, the rate per minute drops to 15 cents per minute for the rest of that day. This is called Roger’s Pay As You Go prepaid (per minute) plan. There are other prepaid plans, but I was told by my Rogers rep that this was the most popular prepaid plan. Also, note that these prepaid plans do not offer a data option. If you want data, then, Roger’s will push you towards a contract.
Last year, I couldn’t even use my iPhone in Canada, this year, iPhone travelers to Canada have a reasonable prepaid option.

Gordon Banks » canada

Prepaid iPhone Calling in Canada

iPhone in Canada