<p>My son is transferring to McGill. He'll need a cellphone to call and text locally, but it would be nice if he could also call and text his girlfriend in New York and his parents. Anyone have any recent experience with this stuff?</p>
<p>If you want simple and straight forward but somewhat more costly, look into regular US cell phone from verizon or at&t with international option. You will have one US cell number and people in Canada will make an international call to his cell phone. But his calls/texts to US will be domestic and free if he stays within the plan limit.</p>
<p>If you are a bit tech-savvy you might try to get fancy and do the virtual phone number or voip like google voice or skype or vonage voip. Get a canadian cell phone plan with data and supplement it with something like google voice. You need a smartphone, preferably Android. You will have 2 numbers, one Canadian and a virtual US number. His Canadian friends will call/text his domestic Canadian number and his American friends/family will call the US number, both will be based in the one cell phone that he has. Google voice is currently free, so all his calls and texts to US would be free until google decides to charge for the service.</p>
<p>There are a lot more details but here is a start:
[Use</a> Google Voice for Android to Slash Your Smartphone Bill | PCWorld](<a href=“http://www.pcworld.com/article/246434/use_google_voice_for_android_to_slash_your_smartphone_bill.html]Use”>Use Google Voice for Android to Slash Your Smartphone Bill | PCWorld)</p>
<p>That sounds like a plan! Thanks.</p>
<p>Will this option work with an iPhone?Thanks!</p>
<p>We have found the cell phone issue to be a bit confusing ourselves. Looks like our plan will be to get our D a Canadian cell phone and switch her US Verizon cell phone to “suspend” (9.99/mo to keep the line active) while she is in Canada. When she comes home for breaks we just call Verizon and they reactivate it. We are also opting to get her a land line in her dorm room for the extra $100 for the school year, which has a 5 cents/min calling rate to the U.S. that she can use to call us and her friends in the US. Otherwise, we will be relying on email, Skype, etc. Have also heard some good things about an app called “Touch” from some other US parents but haven’t checked it out yet…</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>FYI, here’s the link for McGill’s voice and data bundle for Residences:</p>
<p>[2012?2013</a> rates and prices | REZ Voice and Data Service - McGill University](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/rezphone/rates/#longdistance]2012?2013”>http://www.mcgill.ca/rezphone/rates/#longdistance)</p>
<p>I personally would not do land line if there is high speed data access. Skype or FaceTime is the way to go. I wonder if people share their data line with their room-mate? All you need is a cheap $20 router to split the data line.</p>
<p>"Will this option work with an iPhone?Thanks! "</p>
<p>I believe you can do similar thing. I don’t know which solution is best because I don’t know much about IPhone but there are several different google voice apps on IPhone that will allow you to do wifi calling and 3G/4G data call with google voice number.</p>
<p>^^ No routers. </p>
<p>[McGill</a> IT Knowledge Base](<a href=“Service Portal - IT Portal”>Service Portal - IT Portal)</p>
<p>And they do check regularly. And they will catch you. Copy of an email received by all students in rez last year:</p>
<p>"Greetings:</p>
<p>As you should already be aware, the terms and conditions established for the proper usage of the McGill wired and wireless network permit users to connect only one computer to one switch port. The operation of “networks-behind-networks”, such as connecting a personal wireless router or access point (also known as “Rogue APs”), is not allowed. More information, including the full policy, can be found on our website at [Data</a> Usage Policies | REZ Voice and Data Service - McGill University](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/rezphone/policies]Data”>http://www.mcgill.ca/rezphone/policies).</p>
<p>A recent survey has brought to our attention the existence of the following Rogue APs over the last few weeks:</p>
<ul>
<li> EcoResidence room 4E “CE5Z3M9IAG05” & “dlink_media”</li>
<li> EcoResidence room 21C “JECHYL”</li>
<li> Gardner Hall room 308 “PinkLion-guest”</li>
<li> 3464 Hutchison room 112 “FreePorn”</li>
<li> 3464 Hutchison room 308 “dlink” & “dlink278”</li>
<li> New Residences Hall room 526B “Ted Network”</li>
<li> New Residences Hall room 1604</li>
<li> New Residences Hall room 1633 “LINnetwork1” & “LINnetwork2”</li>
<li> Solin Hall room 411-B</li>
<li> Solin Hall A301-3 “MY NET” & “dlink”</li>
</ul>
<p>We kindly ask that these Rogue APs be removed by the end of this week (Friday, October 7, 2011). Should there still be any Rogue APs in use after this date, the associated REZ Data Service subscriber will be found in contravention of the Policy on the Responsible use of McGill Information Technology Resources and their access to the REZ wired/wireless network will be shut down.</p>
<p>Any questions or inquiries can be directed to the IT Services Desk at 514-398-3398 or on the 2nd floor at 688 Sherbrooke St W (corner University St).</p>
<p>Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.</p>
<p>Residences Coordinator, NCS Voice Technologies."</p>
<hr>
<p>And you don’t want to be Mr./Ms. Room 112.</p>
<p>I agree that a land line is far from necessary, as long as everyone your child would like to talk to in the US is computer savvy. In our case, grandparents and some others are not computer savvy AT ALL, so Skype and similar things are out of the question for them. $100 for the academic year for the land line seemed worth it to us for this reason alone, plus I guess we’re just a little old-fashioned and like knowing that there is an actual phone number we can call our D at that can’t be lost, stolen, run out of battery, etc!</p>
<p>^And your daughter also has a cell phone too?</p>
<p>If you want a phone line with US number, and you have a high speed internet access, you can also look into the really cheap voip solutions like magic jack or ooma. There is some initial cost but you can take the box with you to where ever and keep it for all 4 years and long after with very minimal cost per year, a lot less than $100 per year. Grandparents and US friends will call with domestic rate instead of long distance. You can keep the number indefinitely instead of getting a new Canadian number every year which I assume would happen with McGill line.</p>
<p>As we face the same situation (I am driving my first-born to Montreal this Friday), I did look into this issue and it seems to me that keeping a child on a US carrier-issued family plan might be the cheapest solution. In our case (Verizon), it will cost us extra $20/month to upgrade to the plan that covers Canada. We will loose free mobile-to-mobile calls and because of that might have to upgrade to a higher-level plan, but even then the whole thing will become $40/month more than what we are paying now. I was not able to find a Canadian-based plan that can compete…</p>
<p>Mobilicity has $25/month unlimited North American talk and text.</p>
<p>We considered upgrading our current verizon plan to include Canada, but then his number would be long distance to Canadians who want to call/text him.</p>
<p>^Yep, with verizon, all his Canadian friends will be calling/texting him long distance which would cost much higher for most Canadian plan. I imagine after he is situated, most of his calls will be with Canadian numbers most of the time so this might not be the best way to go in light of the availability of skype or facetime for calls to US.</p>
<p>We looked at Moblicity and it does not have good coverage in Montreal, basically you are roaming anywhere outside of city limit of Ottawa or Toronto. Correct me if I’m wrong but on top of $25/month, you need to pay roaming per minute in Montreal.</p>
<p>We are going with Petro Canada, it is a prepaid reseller Rogers network. Rogers has excellent coverage all over Canada. You can do pay as you go or monthly plan. You actually can go with monthly plan and in the summer when he comes back to the US, switch to pay as you go and not incur any cost while keeping the number. There is $25/month plan or other tiers based on how much you want to use, and you can switch up and down as you change your usage pattern.</p>
<p>[Prepaid</a> Cell Phones - Petro-Canada Mobility Prepaid Cell Phone Plan](<a href=“http://mobility.petro-canada.ca/default.aspx]Prepaid”>http://mobility.petro-canada.ca/default.aspx)</p>
<p>We are doing this with google voice US number on my daughter phone.</p>
<p>ttparent, I’ve learned something new. Petro-Canada is involved in cell phones?! Wow. I’m willing to bet that 99.9% of Canadians I know had no idea. I do get my gas there, though. 
If you’re sure that she will actually be on the Rogers network, she should be okay. Otherwise, I wouldn’t take the chance.</p>
<p>Yes, they are basically a reseller of Rogers network. But it is 3G only, no 4G for data. There are many outfits like this for all the major carriers. The better known divisions of Rogers are Chatr and Fido. In the end, it is the same network and same coverage for 2G voice and 3G data as Rogers. But you won’t get access to the latest 4G technology, that’s for better paying Rogers customers only. Howards Forum is a great place to research all the ins and outs of the mobile phone market.</p>
<p>It is prepaid and no contract, so the risk is minimal. If you don’t like it, you can always leave and go pay more at Rogers or Bells or Telus any time you want. Those 3 use almost the same GSM technology so, most likely, the phone will work on any of them as long as you get an unlocked phone. There is also an unlimited web access of $8/month (surf only), and if you know how to root your phone, you can get basically unlimited a 3G data access with some special tricks.</p>
<p>^^^ Oops, forgot about Mobilicity’s coverage map. My family is from Edmonton, and that’s the plan my sister has. I’m on Fido myself.</p>