Canada highspeed cellular internet

[e***@evian.spam]

In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.

What similar offerings, if any, are there in Canada? I am looking for
high speed internet, say 1MBit/sec, over cellular, prepay (pay as you
go). Does Rogers/Fido do such a thing? Whose is the cheapest offering?
I am specifically looking not to get tied into a contract, just walk
into a shop, buy a USB dongle and pay for data usage by credit card,
the same way we can in the UK.

Thank you for answers, and sorry about the crosspost, but I really
need a solution on this one. This is for Vancouver BC.

[JF Mezei]

Post by e***@evian.spam
In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.

Not sure you will find "therered" internet access on prepaid in Canada.
For the southern portion of Canada, Rogers is currently the only GSM
carrier. Bell and Telus are still on that CDMA thing, but have begun to
overlay GSM on their network. (not functional yet).

Recently, a new GSM carrier was started in Ontario (not sure if it will
cover rest of canada) (I think its name is Globalive, but not sure).
Videotron is getting back into cellular with a quebec only network
(Globalive will not be in Québec).

Fido is now a brand of Rogers.
Koodo is a brand of Telus.
Solo and Virgin are brands of Bell.

[Geoffrey Welsh]

Post by JF Mezei
Recently, a new GSM carrier was started in Ontario (not sure if it
will cover rest of canada) (I think its name is Globalive, but not
sure). Videotron is getting back into cellular with a quebec only
network (Globalive will not be in Québec).

I wouldn't hold my breath for Globalive. The incumbents are raising a stink
about its foreign ownership stake, and it will probably be a while before
they can actually start building anything. Even then, it will be only in the
major cities with expansion to less central areas over time (hmm, reminds me
a bit of Clearnet, no?)

However, hopefully in the long run they'll build out in The Rest of Canada
and have some kind of reciprocal agreement with Videotron. I can't see
either carrier getting much business if customers can only get service in or
out of Quebec, but not both.

Post by JF Mezei
Solo and Virgin are brands of Bell.

Solo is a brand owned and operated by Bell (i.e. it's a brand name, not a
company) like Fido is Rogers and Koodo is Telus.

Virgin Mobile Canada uses Bell's network, but is a separate entity with very
different rates. Unfortunately, it has a lot of restrictions: no roaming on
prepaid plans, few plans with lots of daytime minutes, and only recently did
they begin to offer 'real' data plans.

[Jimbo]

Post by e***@evian.spam
In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.
What similar offerings, if any, are there in Canada? I am looking for
high speed internet, say 1MBit/sec, over cellular, prepay (pay as you
go). Does Rogers/Fido do such a thing? Whose is the cheapest offering?
I am specifically looking not to get tied into a contract, just walk
into a shop, buy a USB dongle and pay for data usage by credit card,
the same way we can in the UK.
Thank you for answers, and sorry about the crosspost, but I really
need a solution on this one. This is for Vancouver BC.

Rogers has what you need.

[tlvp]

Post by Jimbo

Post by e***@evian.spam
In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.
What similar offerings, if any, are there in Canada? I am looking for
high speed internet, say 1MBit/sec, over cellular, prepay (pay as you
go). Does Rogers/Fido do such a thing? Whose is the cheapest offering?
I am specifically looking not to get tied into a contract, just walk
into a shop, buy a USB dongle and pay for data usage by credit card,
the same way we can in the UK.
Thank you for answers, and sorry about the crosspost, but I really
need a solution on this one. This is for Vancouver BC.

Rogers has what you need.

Browsing through Rogers' web site, I can only find their Rocket Stick,
free with a two year commitment at CA$25/month or higher:

http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/rocket_stick?cm_re=wireless-_-main_badge-_-rocketstick .

Prepay? Couldn't turn up anything. Can you offer further details, please, Jimbo?

Thanks! And cheers, -- tlvp

[Mike Drechsler - SPAM PROTECTED EMAIL]

Post by tlvp

Post by Jimbo

Post by e***@evian.spam
In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.
What similar offerings, if any, are there in Canada? I am looking for
high speed internet, say 1MBit/sec, over cellular, prepay (pay as you
go). Does Rogers/Fido do such a thing? Whose is the cheapest offering?
I am specifically looking not to get tied into a contract, just walk
into a shop, buy a USB dongle and pay for data usage by credit card,
the same way we can in the UK.
Thank you for answers, and sorry about the crosspost, but I really
need a solution on this one. This is for Vancouver BC.

Rogers has what you need.

Browsing through Rogers' web site, I can only find their Rocket Stick,
http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/rocket_stick?cm_re=wireless-_-main_badge-_-rocketstick .
Prepay? Couldn't turn up anything. Can you offer further details, please, Jimbo?
Thanks! And cheers, -- tlvp

There are no prepaid data providers in Canada. You must sign up on a
month to month basis with a full credit check required.

There may be some third party services who can rent you equipment on a
shorter term basis. Often those services will be targeted at business
travellers and the rates can be extremely high compared to the price you
would pay on the monthly plans.

As for your price point of $25/GB. Even on the monthly plans if you go
over then Telus is currently charging $51.20/GB and Rogers is charging
$30.72/GB after using up your monthly included data on their month to
month plans. So even if a prepaid option existed I would expect it's
pay per use rates would be higher than the monthly plan rates. Probably
in the $75/GB range.

Last year there was more competition for data plans in Canada because it
was just prior to the big launch of the iphone so Bell and Telus were
offering unlimited data plans in order to lock in customers. They even
had unlimited data card plans. After the iphone launch they stopped
offering the unlimited plans to new customers but anyone who got one
from back then is allowed to keep it. The best deals on data cards were
the Telus plans. They offered 3 plans that are still sought after on
cell contract swapping services.
For $106.95 the most common one you find is "Connect 100 Unlimited". It
included unlimited using in Canada AND the United States.
For $81.95 is the less common "Connect 75 Unlimited". It only includes
unlimited data inside of Canada. Roaming in the USA costs $3/MB.
For $39.95 is the extremely rare "TELUS Wireless Connect 33 5 GB" It
gave you 5GB of usage with additional gigs up to a maximum cap of 20GB
of total usage for $10/GB and USA roaming at $3/MB. This was only
offered as a retention plan under very limited circumstances.

Bell also had some unlimited options but in a very unpopular move they
kicked users off their service who used more than a few GB of data or
even less if the users were roaming on one of Bells partners towers at
the time. Since Bell did that Telus also had to kick some of their
users off unlimited plans who were using their data exclusively in areas
where there were only Bell towers since they didn't have the
offsetting usage from unlimited Bell customers using Telus towers
anymore to balance out with their own customers. So best advice to
anyone who still has one of those unlimited plans is to make sure you do
the majority of your usage on your carriers native coverage footprint to
prevent that from happening. In the case of Telus though they were much
more lenient than Bell. Telus wouldn't kick anyone off that was using
less than 5GB. Bell was kicking users with under 1GB if they did it all
in a Telus tower coverage area.

Too bad you say you needed this in Vancouver though, if you were in
Edmonton I would offer to rent you mine. I have an extra data card
right now on one of the Telus $81.95 Unlimited plans which I think I'm
going to be offering for sale soon since I don't need it for my business
anymore. At one point in time or another I have had all 3 of the Telus
plans I mentioned so I have lots of experience with these.

[tlvp]

Post by Mike Drechsler - SPAM PROTECTED EMAIL

Post by tlvp

Post by Jimbo

Post by e***@evian.spam
In the UK we have Vodafone 3G high speed cellular internet which uses
a USB dongle and costs £ 15 (about CAD 25) per GByte prepaid.
What similar offerings, if any, are there in Canada? I am looking for
high speed internet, say 1MBit/sec, over cellular, prepay (pay as you
go). Does Rogers/Fido do such a thing? Whose is the cheapest offering?
I am specifically looking not to get tied into a contract, just walk
into a shop, buy a USB dongle and pay for data usage by credit card,
the same way we can in the UK.
Thank you for answers, and sorry about the crosspost, but I really
need a solution on this one. This is for Vancouver BC.

Rogers has what you need.

Browsing through Rogers' web site, I can only find their Rocket Stick,
http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/rocket_stick?cm_re=wireless-_-main_badge-_-rocketstick .
Prepay? Couldn't turn up anything. Can you offer further details, please, Jimbo?
Thanks! And cheers, -- tlvp

There are no prepaid data providers in Canada. You must sign up on a
month to month basis with a full credit check required.
There may be some third party services who can rent you equipment on a
shorter term basis. Often those services will be targeted at business
travellers and the rates can be extremely high compared to the price you
would pay on the monthly plans.
As for your price point of $25/GB. Even on the monthly plans if you go
over then Telus is currently charging $51.20/GB and Rogers is charging
$30.72/GB after using up your monthly included data on their month to
month plans. So even if a prepaid option existed I would expect it's
pay per use rates would be higher than the monthly plan rates. Probably
in the $75/GB range.
Last year there was more competition for data plans in Canada because it
was just prior to the big launch of the iphone so Bell and Telus were
offering unlimited data plans in order to lock in customers. They even
had unlimited data card plans. After the iphone launch they stopped
offering the unlimited plans to new customers but anyone who got one
from back then is allowed to keep it. The best deals on data cards were
the Telus plans. They offered 3 plans that are still sought after on
cell contract swapping services.
For $106.95 the most common one you find is "Connect 100 Unlimited". It
included unlimited using in Canada AND the United States.
For $81.95 is the less common "Connect 75 Unlimited". It only includes
unlimited data inside of Canada. Roaming in the USA costs $3/MB.
For $39.95 is the extremely rare "TELUS Wireless Connect 33 5 GB" It
gave you 5GB of usage with additional gigs up to a maximum cap of 20GB
of total usage for $10/GB and USA roaming at $3/MB. This was only
offered as a retention plan under very limited circumstances.
Bell also had some unlimited options but in a very unpopular move they
kicked users off their service who used more than a few GB of data or
even less if the users were roaming on one of Bells partners towers at
the time. Since Bell did that Telus also had to kick some of their
users off unlimited plans who were using their data exclusively in areas
where there were only Bell towers since they didn't have the
offsetting usage from unlimited Bell customers using Telus towers
anymore to balance out with their own customers. So best advice to
anyone who still has one of those unlimited plans is to make sure you do
the majority of your usage on your carriers native coverage footprint to
prevent that from happening. In the case of Telus though they were much
more lenient than Bell. Telus wouldn't kick anyone off that was using
less than 5GB. Bell was kicking users with under 1GB if they did it all
in a Telus tower coverage area.
Too bad you say you needed this in Vancouver though, if you were in
Edmonton I would offer to rent you mine. I have an extra data card
right now on one of the Telus $81.95 Unlimited plans which I think I'm
going to be offering for sale soon since I don't need it for my business
anymore. At one point in time or another I have had all 3 of the Telus
plans I mentioned so I have lots of experience with these.

It's a good three months later now, as I write this, and the service I'm
about to describe is only US-based, not Canadian, but, with those caveats:

I've just read in the latest issue of Network World (9/14/2009, p. 24) about
the VirginMobile USA "Broadband2Go", a Novatel Wireless "Ovation MC760" USB
data-modem with a prepay plan -- $10 for 100 MB data and up to 10 days access,
$60 for 1 GB data and up to 30 days access.

Perhaps www.networkworld.com will have a link to the full article. Likewise,
with luck, there'll be a Canadian VirginMobile with a similar offering ... :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp