Cell Phones = First World Problems

If you are like me you have a cell phone and if you are like me your cell phone is an important part of your life (first world problems). So moving to the USA for a year means that you have to figure out what’s happening with your current cell phone and plan, as well as what you will do for a cell phone plan once you are in Florida. While this isn’t an overly complex step in your preparation to move to Florida, it certainly is an important one, so hopefully this post will give you an idea of what your options are for your cell phone.

First thing you should do is figure out what you are going to do with your current cell phone plan. If you are reaaalllllyyyyy lucky, maybe your cell phone contract will end at the same time as you are leaving for Florida. Unfortunately, this is not the case for me. I actually got a new cell phone and plan about a week before my Disney interview and it wasn’t until after my mom pointed out that I should have waited until after I found out if I got the job or not. So now I have this 2-year cell phone plan and a brand new phone that I need to figure out what I’m going to do with!

My cell phone plan is currently with Rogers. I suggest you contact your cell phone provider a few weeks before you leave to discuss your options so that there aren’t any surprises right before you leave, and I also suggest you call your cell phone provider directly instead of just going into a mobile store. When I first got the offer from Disney, I went into a Rogers store and they did not give me accurate information regarding what I could do with my cell phone plan. I decided about a month before I left to give Rogers a call directly to confirm what I had been told and I am glad I did because it would not have been a nice surprise to have a week before I left.

So first and foremost I knew I would want to keep my current cell phone (the new iPhone SE). If you buy a phone on a phone plan, it most likely is locked into your cell phone provider so in order to use it with a cell phone plan from a different provider, you have to unlock it. At Rogers, the fee to unlock your phone is $50. I know that with most cell phone providers there is a fee associated with unlocking your phone.

Then I was told in the Rogers store that I could transfer my phone plan to my brother. However, what I learned from talking directly to Rogers on the phone is that I could “transfer” my phone plan to my brother by simply giving him my SIM card, however the plan would have to stay in my name and he would have to take my phone number, because I have a corporate plan. Now maybe this would be different if I did not have the corporate plan, but I think that at one point they did tell me that it is against Rogers policy to transfer a plan to a different phone number. This was disappointing because for the past 3 months I had been thinking that I would just simply transfer my plan to him and that would be it, donezo. So now it was on to plan B – I could suspend my phone plan but in order to suspend your phone plan you must first buy out your phone (which would cost me $400) and then it would cost $16 a month to suspend my phone plan. I was pretty unhappy with this option because a) I wasn’t expecting to be paying $400 out of pocket right before I left for Florida, and b) I didn’t want to pay $16 on top of the phone plan I would be paying for in the US. So then it was on to plan C – cancelling my phone plan. At first I threw this option out there to Rogers as a threat because I was hoping that they would be able to make an exception for me and let me transfer my corporate plan to my bro, but this did not work. Therefore, I have now decided to cancel my phone plan with Rogers, which will cost me the amount I mentioned above to buy out my phone, which is $400.

At this point I am thinking, “Who would pay to suspend their phone plan when they could save themselves the monthly fee by just buying out the phone and cancelling?” because ultimately suspending the phone plan would end up costing more. However I talked to a friend who is suspending her phone plan and she said that she didn’t think paying the monthly fee was a large price to pay to keep her family plan (which is apparently a very good deal) and also to keep her phone number. I definitely understand and appreciate this. I however decided that cancelling was the best option for me because I will always be able to get the corporate plan and I don’t really feel to overly sentimental about my phone number. It really all depends on your personal situation and what you feel is reasonable and best for you.

Okay so once you figure out what is going to happen with your current cell phone plan, then you have to decide on a cell phone plan that will be right for you in the US. As I am sure you already know, Canada cell phone plans are EXPENSIVE in terms of what you get for what you pay. Moving to the US, you can expect to pay a similar amount to what you pay in Canada BUT you get so much more on your phone plan. You can get less expensive plans in the US but it was a priority for me to have a plan that allowed me to text within and between Canada without being charged extra fees. Lucky for me, I live in a border town so I was able to go to the US a few weeks prior to leaving to scope out phone plans to see what options are out there.

I am going to give a brief description of phone plans available from four providers – Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

Verizon – With Verizon, all plans have unlimited talk and text within the US and then depending on how much data you want you pay more for the plan. I was looking at their smallest plan with 2GB of data which would cost $35 a month plus a line access fee which is $20 a month. So for this plan it would cost $55 a month. However, this plan does not include texting within and between Canada. If I wanted to text to Canada or from Canada, it would cost me $2 for 24 hours of unlimited texting within and between Canada. I thought that this could get really expensive really fast so I ultimately decided not to go with Verizon.

AT&T – I really liked AT&T’s North American plan which allows for unlimited talk, text and data usage within the US, Canada and Mexico. It costs $60 a month (or $55 if you set up a credit or debit card to automatically pay for you each month), and included 6GB of high-speed data which can be used in all three countries and if you don’t use all of the data it will rollover to the next month. Now I don’t ever expect to use 6GB of data but I like that I can use my data in Canada without being charged out the ying yang. The only thing with this plan is that of all your usage in a month, 50% of it must be in the US. This shouldn’t be a problem if you are living in Florida and might just use it in Canada a couple times if and when you come home to visit.

T-Mobile – These guys also had a North American plan which is almost identical to AT&T’s, except it cost $65 a month and it also included unlimited music streaming that doesn’t cut into your data usage (called “binge on”). Since unlimited music streaming was not a priority for me, I would rather go with AT&T which costs less per month.

Sprint – With Sprint, all plans have unlimited talk and text within the US and also unlimited talk and text within and between Canada. For a small plan, which includes 3GB of data, it would cost $30 a month plus a line access fee which is $20 a month. Therefore for a month overall would cost $50.

One other option you have is roam mobility. If it wasn’t for the fact that I can go to the US prior to leaving for Disney to get a phone plan, I definitely would have been looking into Roam because they offer daily phone plans that you can buy at the Duty Free store or order online before leaving for a trip (approx. $3 a day I think). They also offer monthly plans designed for snowbirds, but I’m sure you could use them on a month by month basis. I didn’t end up reading into them too much but if you want more information about them you can find it here on their website: https://www.roammobility.com/

At this point I have actually not yet bought a cell phone plan because I still have a few weeks to go, but I will be getting one at the end of August/beginning of September. I need to cancel my current plan before my month renews on September 1st, and then I will go get an American plan so I still have cell coverage in Canada leading up to when I leave September 9th. It was also a priority for me to be able to use my cell phone while driving down to Florida, because sitting in a car for 20 hours without being able to text or check Facebook sounds miserable (again, first world problems). I think I will end up going with AT&T, because even though it is a little bit more pricey than Sprint, AT&T has a reputation for having better cell coverage in the States whereas I have heard that Sprint’s service can be shotty sometimes.

I now have less than one month before I start at Disney! I should be getting the DORMS email to register for housing so I will write on that once that happens!