Rogers, Telus and Bell have launched new Canada-US roaming plans, but only in Quebec and for the Ottawa region in Ontario.
The new plans are seemingly a response to Freedom Mobile and its $50/40GB Canada-US plan, but mainly to compete with similar Canada-US plans from Quebecor’s Videotron in Quebec.
As for the ‘Big 3’, their new Canada-US plans are as follows:
The plans are all at full 5G+ speeds and include unlimited talk, text and data while in Canada and the U.S.
Rogers is also offering $85/60GB (Telus too) and $110/100GB Canada-US plans in Quebec. Videotron offers a 100GB annual data bonus for its plans.
For those outside Quebec, you’ll need to pay $105/month for a Canada-US plan from Rogers, Telus and Bell, that includes 150GB of data (probably overkill for the average user).
It’s unclear if incumbents will expand these new Canada-US roaming plans outside of Quebec. Rogers-owned Fido did match Freedom Mobile’s Canada-US plan at $50/40GB.
Once Freedom Mobile establishes its 5G network in the next couple of years, it’ll be even more interesting to see what their promised price reductions will be compared to the ‘Big 3’.
These Canada-US roaming plans are cheaper than subscribing to daily roaming plans when travelling down south. Of course, you could always use an eSIM to buy data from third-party services such as Airalo (save 10% with code IPHONEINCANADA until Dec. 31, 2023) or Keepgo (get 3GB bonus) ahead of your U.S. travels.
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Hopefully, this is thin edge of the wedge and these plans will be available in the rest of the country soon. Freedom must be getting a lot of traction with their 40GB $50 Canada-US plan.
It seems to be the Videotron deal that these plans are targeting since Ottawa-Quebec is their market..
Which is really a plan that’s meant to save Quebecor from cannabalizing itself…
I tried Freedom because of this (I work in the states a few times a month), but I was getting 3G or no signal in downtown Vancouver and decided I couldn’t handle it. Apparently if you’re in an area where there are Freedom cell towers it won’t connect to a ‘nationwide’ tower (rogers, Telus, bell), no matter how bad the signal is – you have to be outside of a Freedom zone. I fully support them and hope they can get sorted out to be a proper competitor and they’re close but still feel like an annoyance to use.
Yes, it’s kind of rough in that way…
I’m looking forward to see Freedom improve now that Rogers isn’t causing them to sandbag their network anymore…
I don’t know how possible or quickly that’ll be… if youre not getting LTE somewhere, then launching their lower range, higher bandwidth 5G spectrum certainly won’t help… but maybe them launching their 71 band might help a little if they use it to be dedicated 5G?
They need access to Robellus’ towers or need a way to dramatically increase their own.
I use Keepgo for international travel. The data only service has worked well.