While travelling in the USA, using your cell phone can be costly. Rogers roaming airtime rates are $1.45/min, and text message rates are $0.70/text. Even if you buy a travel pack, you’re still going to be paying about $1/min on Rogers.
I unlocked my Blackberry Bold through Horizon Wireless. You can get your GSM phone unlocked for about $8-10. This will allow you to use any GSM sim card when travelling.
I had done a bit of research regarding US pre-paid SIM cards. You can get one from AT&T or T-mobile, but the rates will be quite expensive. The one I ended up going with was O2 wireless, which you can buy the sim card at Bestbuy for $10, which gives you a $7 airtime credit.
The rates are as follows: $0.14/minute and you can roam anywhere in AT&T coverage with no change in rate. Long distance is free to over 50 countries. Text messages are $0.05 to send or receive to anyone in the US or Canada. All in all, getting the prepaid SIM will save you a lot of money if you are planning on just making a few calls or a few text messages. The only downside is that you can’t use your Canadian phone number, and there are no data services with O2 wireless. But, if you’re phone has WiFi access, you can still access the internet through that.
