Traveling with your phone inside Canada made easy

I'm traveling next week with my phone. Help?

This is one of my most frequently asked sets of questions, and for good reason. It's not entirely intuitive at first. How much is long distance calling? If I live in Vancouver and I travel to Toronto, will my calls be long distance? Will I be roaming? What about in the US? These are important things to know - not knowing the answers could be the difference between getting a huge bill that you weren't expecting, and not.

What is the difference between long distance and roaming?

Roaming means one very specific thing. You are roaming when your phone is no longer connected to the Rogers network, and is instead connected to a different network, such as AT&T if you're in the US. Rogers is essentially renting the services of another network, and you are being billed by Rogers. Roaming is expensive. In the US you're looking at over a buck a minute, and overseas you're looking at way more. Long distance, on the other hand, is usually a call that you make when your phone is connected to the Rogers network, but to a destination outside of your home calling area. If you live in Calgary and you make a call to Toronto, you're calling long distance. If you call Florida that's also long distance. If you take your phone to Florida with you, you are roaming.

I already knew what a long distance call was you idiot, where's the confusing bit?

So, if you live in Calgary and you call Toronto that's long distance. You know that. But what if you travel to Toronto. Are you roaming? Are you long distance? This is where the average Rogers customer gets a little bit worried - and rightly so. Making the wrong phone call could be a costly mistake, and it's very unlikely that you would get any money back for not understanding the rules. Therefore, I present to you the three most important rules of traveling with your phone in Canada:

Rule Number 1: If you are in another Canadian city with your phone, all calls to back home will be long distance.

This is a pretty self explanatory one. You are in Toronto. You live in Calgary. When you call back to Calgary from your cell phone, that's a long distance call, and will be billed according to your long distance rate (talk to a Rogers rep at a store or call *611 and talk to customer service to find out what your long distance rate is).

Rule Number 2: If you are in another Canadian city with your phone, all calls to the city that you are in will be local.

This is the part that most people wish they knew. You live in Calgary. You are in Toronto. When you call Toronto numbers, those are local calls. So make as many phone calls to Toronto as you'd like. Keep in mind that you can buy a long distance phone card with a Toronto access number, and that Toronto access number will be a local call.

Rule number 3 (this is the kicker): ALL incoming calls are long distance.

You're in Toronto. You live in Calgary. Toronto is calling you - don't answer, it's long distance call. Calgary's calling - don't answer, that's long distance too. Every call that you receive while traveling in a city that is not your home calling area will be charged as long distance. Moreover, the person calling you will also be paying long distance rates to talk to you, even if he's standing right next to you, because he's calling a Calgary number. So if you answer that call, it's expensive for you AND him. Remember rule number 2 though, and just don't answer the call and call him right back.

Why are outgoing calls to Toronto local but incoming from Toronto long distance? Think about it this way: when you make a call to Toronto, your phone sends the call to a Toronto cell tower, and that Toronto cell tower sends it to the Toronto phone that you are calling. No muss, no fuss. But when that person calls you, his phone sends the call to the Toronto cell tower, which looks at your number and figures it's in Calgary so it sends it over to there, at which point the Calgary cell tower says "No dice.. He's actually in Toronto" and sends it right back over. This is obviously a grossly simplified and probably inaccurate depiction of what actually happens, but it's a good analogy to help you remember what is long distance and what is not. All incoming calls are long distance, so if you don't want an expensive phone bill, don't answer.

Other important stuff to know

Text messaging will save you money. Text messaging knows no bounds, in Canada at least. You can be anywhere in Canada, and text to anywhere in Canada, and not have to worry about any kind of long distance charges. Same thing goes for data - which is good news if you're lost. I can't tell you the number of times I've used Maps on my iPhone to get directions in a strange city. Email is obviously included in your data plan, so feel free to email as much as your data plan will allow for. If you are outside of your home calling area, you will pay long distance rates to check your voicemail from your cell phone. Sad but true. The best thing to do if you want to avoid paying those long distance rates is to check your voicemail from a landline by calling your cell number and then pressing # when your voicemail message comes up.

There are plans that exist that simplify your rates a bit. If you travel quite a bit, these might be a good idea for you. Go talk to a Rogers rep in a store or call customer service to figure out if these are right for you (I feel like a drug commercial.. talk to your doctor to see if the Digital One Rate is right for you). All these rules go out the window if you are in another country. I'll write an article on that another time.

Hope this has been helpful,

TRG