Just some observations on electronics from our first visit to Canada.
We are staying at the Edgewater Hilltop Rv Park located within a 9 hole golf course about 10 K north of Radium Springs, BC. 7 full hookup sites with 30 amps. Great place. (See
www.edgewaterhilltopgolf.com)
Before leaving SoCal, I received lots of advice about the availability and expense of using cellphones, and access to satellite and Sirius services up here - some good, some not so much. Here’s some of what we’ve found:
Verizon: When we went to the website, we learned that there is a cost to using Verizon in Canada. They promoted a plan in which we would pay $5.95 per day for any day we used the phone. This plan gave us access to most of the features in our US plan while in Canada. Declining this plan, we would pay $.95 per minute to make calls.
We declined the $5.95 plan, but soon after our arrival, I received a text from Verizon, once again offering the $5.95 plan. Once again, we declined to take the plan, but despite this, the next day, I had an email from Verizon thanking us for accepting the plan. It required a 10 minute phone call to Verizon C/S to get the plan turned off and a $5.95 charge removed from the bill.
T Mobile. First, we found that, unlike Verizon, T Mobile includes Canada and Mexico to its service area at no cost. We use a T Mobile 4G LTE mifi device only for internet service. We were surprised to find that we had a good signal here in Canada. We have an “unlimited” data plan.
We also like T Mobile’s “BingeOn” feature, that doesn’t charge our account for data used for streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime and several other streaming services.
Turns out that the T Mobile “Unlimited” data plan includes 6 GB of high speed data each month to use for streaming video not included in the BingeOn program.
Unfortunately, also turns out that the BingeOn feature doesn’t work in Canada. With Netflix now burning up the 6GB allotment, we blew through it in short order. Once the 6GB was gone, the LTE turned into super-slow 2G until the end of the billing period. Fortunately, the Edgewater RV park has excellent wi-fi.
The next bit of good news is that Dish satellite works great here. the dish is pointing pretty low in the sky now, so not sure how much farther north it will work.
Finally, glad to learn that Sirius/XM works fine here. My neighbor here lives way north of Edmonton, and says it works fine at home.
