Staying in
touch with friends and family becomes even more important when you are away. Now
first thing most people do or at least want to do is to get a cell phone
connection immediately. You should too; the only problem here is that things
are not as simple as they are back in India. You cannot just go to a shop and
buy a connection. Cell plans and the way they are completely different from how
it is in India. Most of them would need you to sign a contract (stay out of
contracts I would say). And you don’t have to pay much to sign a contract, but
there is a catch. You need a valid credit card and id proof (Learn how to get acredit card before you even reach Canada).
There are a
number of operators in Canada. The big ones Rogers, Bell, Telus and Virgin are
also the most expensive ones. Then there is Fido, Kodoo, Wind, Chatr,
Mobilicity, Public Mobile and Petro Canada.
There are a
few things you need to consider when selecting the cell phone plan. Incoming
minutes are not free in all plans. Every plan has some minutes .e.g. If a plans
says 100 minutes, it means 100 minutes of incoming + outgoing (unless other
stated). Then there are long distance minutes. Calls all over Canada are not
free. You might have unlimited local minutes (only in one state), but when you
call another state it is considered a long distance call.
Keeping all
that in mind I took chatr. It was a great plan, had unlimited minutes and texts
for $40, the only drawback was that there was no data. You do get 100 MB for
$45, which I found to be a waste of money. I managed with this plan for a
couple of months and then shifted to Wind.
Wind has
the most awesome plans, but again, there is a catch. A WIND Sim will not work
on an Indian Mobile. It uses the frequency AWS 1700 which is not there in our
mobiles. So to get WIND, you have a get a mobile from WIND. To get that you
would need a Credit card. (It has to be a Canadian Credit Card).
Chatr is
one of the few operators which would work on your Indian mobile. You can always
switch your connection later (there is mobile number portability). The operator
switching happens in a matter of minutes.
This was
only for local calling. For international calling check out this page
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