What's a VOIP phone? Some kind of Canadian landline? Sounds like it could help solve a lot of problems. That and a US cell phone is a whole lot better than $2/minute.
And, it sounds like for me, if I started doing a lot of runs up there a Canadian cell phone wouldn't be the answer.
A VOIP phone is a "Voice over Internet Protocol" phone. It is offered by among other companies, Vonage and Primus. It is available both in the US and Canada. It is a proper land line other than the fact that you plug in a box provided by Primus in my case into a high speed internet modem at one end and plug your normal phone jack into the other end. The only downside is that if your high speed internet connection is down, you have no phone. Also if your power supply is down, you have no phone. But is far cheaper than a traditional land line. I use it an additional phone line to supplement the traditional land line.
The basic problem in Canada for truckers using cell phones is that the US concept of no long distance and no roaming is not available. That makes is very expensive. In the US, the T-mobile plan that I had effectively had all local minutes. So my 1000 minutes could be used in Los Angeles or Miami. Depending on my how much running you plan on doing in Canada, the best thing to do is get a Canadian cell phone with a Canadian roaming plan. That will ensure that all that you have to do is track your minutes usage, no long distance. But it will offer far lower value for money than comparable US plans e.g. Rogers, a cell phone provider in Canada offers something called the "Canadian one Rate" plan. It has various slabs with about an effective 80-85 Canadian dollars giving you 500 minutes usable all over Canada . Included in those 500 minutes is that you can dial anywhere in Canada or the US. While is is better than normal plans, it is nowwhere near as good as anything available from Verizon, Sprint or T-mobile in the US.
Skype will allow you to call anywhere in the world for free as long as the calls are to another computer. There is a small charge for calling land lines from your computer.
Cam a "Loonie" is what we Canadians call the $1.00 coin cause the coin has a picture of a Loon on it. The $2.00 coin is called a Twoonie. They came out with these coins to replace the $2.00 and $1.00 paper bills some years ago. They're a pain in the butt. My opinion of course.
I am sorry. What I should have stated is that it is not widespread i.e. competition is not as great as in the US e.g. in the US when I drove, my T-Mobile plan for USD 45 per month gave me 1000 day time minutes plus nights and weekends free. In Canada you pay much more e.g. with Rogers communication, for 800 minutes per month (usable all over Canada) you pay 100 canadian dollars plus fixed charges of about 13 dollars and depending on which province you get your phone from, a tax of say14% on the 113 dollars, about a total of 130 Canadian dollars, which at the current exchange rate is almost 125 US dollars per month. And the Canadian plans do not give you nights and weekends free. The minutes you see is what you get. So in effect, cellphones are about 3.00-3.5 times more expensive in Canada plus if you factor in no free nights and weekends and how much you talk during those "free times", it could be as much as 5 times more expensive or more. When I drove, and was in the US, which was about 4 nights a week, my family called me every night and spoke on an average for half an hour. Now add that in minutes per month and the Canadian plan would be 5 to 6 times more expensive.
Cam a "Loonie" is what we Canadians call the $1.00 coin cause the coin has a picture of a Loon on it. The $2.00 coin is called a Twoonie. They came out with these coins to replace the $2.00 and $1.00 paper bills some years ago. They're a pain in the butt. My opinion of course.
LOL Got it. I thought it was something like British English. I had a list of words they use that we don't like: a tin; your bird; the tube; a bloke, a row; a bugger; a lorry; 'football'; a jumper...
I am sorry. What I should have stated is that it is not widespread i.e. competition is not as great as in the US e.g. in the US when I drove, my T-Mobile plan for USD 45 per month gave me 1000 day time minutes plus nights and weekends free. In Canada you pay much more e.g. with Rogers communication, for 800 minutes per month (usable all over Canada) you pay 100 canadian dollars plus fixed charges of about 13 dollars and depending on which province you get your phone from, a tax of say14% on the 113 dollars, about a total of 130 Canadian dollars, which at the current exchange rate is almost 125 US dollars per month. And the Canadian plans do not give you nights and weekends free. The minutes you see is what you get. So in effect, cellphones are about 3.00-3.5 times more expensive in Canada plus if you factor in no free nights and weekends and how much you talk during those "free times", it could be as much as 5 times more expensive or more. When I drove, and was in the US, which was about 4 nights a week, my family called me every night and spoke on an average for half an hour. Now add that in minutes per month and the Canadian plan would be 5 to 6 times more expensive.
Even though Canadian intranational cellphone calls cost more, talking to your family a half hour every night across the border would be pretty expensive whichever country you are calling from.
Skype sounds like it could be an answer for families. Park the truck at the Flying J or whereever you can get adequate bandwidth and catch up on the day's news virtually free.
06-09-2007, 11:30 PM
