Anybody need some cellular data?

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GreyGhost said:
So an interesting data point today. I switched from Roger's to freedom late last year. In general, I find the reception worse with freedom but saving more than 50% helps me cope. At home, I can see three or four networks. Freedom I can connect to but it's completely useless and has no data or voice. I also see three different networks labeled nationwide. When Sim issues popped up today at the same time as Roger's was having Sim issues, it's obvious that one of the nationwides is Roger's. I get worse reception with same phone though so I suspect they have freedom on a crappier tier.

It would be convenient if the networks showed up with carrier names instead of all being the same. I know which networks work best in some locations but need to manually try them all to find that one.

Biggest pita with freedom is call display for others doesn't have my name. It just has a number. Wtf. So many people now don't answer calls from unknown numbers and have no idea what numbers anyone has. I may see if there is some option to resolve that.

I also had problems with credit when signing up. My score is good (900) but their system said it sucked. That meant I needed to put one line on pre-paid and the remaining I could have post-paid. All get charged to the same card. It's stupid. They told me to come back in a few months and they would consolidate but I haven't bothered trying yet.
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Yeah Freedom's network is still crap. Even after all these years of supposedly upgrades. I was in the middle of Markham earlier in the week getting 3G...WTF, and North Toronto area with 1 bar of LTE.. But there billing is perfect no hassles what so ever.
 
GreyGhost said:
( although in DR, it would connect but was completely useless with no voice or data).
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Did you have international roaming disabled on your account? With Freedom it is an option that can be turned off and is separate from US roaming. You also need to make sure that you have any “data roaming“ options enabled on your phone - I’ve seen this complaint from a lot of people on Reddit and that often turns out to be what the problem was.

JC99 said:
The plan isn't super cheap but there's reports that those with enough effort and haggling can get it for $55. I pay $75 but if you BYOD I think it’s a few bucks cheaper.
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That’s almost enough to make be consider switching, but I’ll probably stay with Freedom - through a combination of grandfathered plans, discount codes, and bonus data add-ons I currently have around 80 gigs of anywhere Canada data as well as unlimited US roaming (I’ll be at throttled after one gig, but it’s still usable) for $32/month, same in my wife’s account. When we are travelling in the USA (which won’t be for the foreseeable future at this point anyways) and need more data I just pick up a cheap eSIM, ditto when travelling internationally.

sburns said:
Yeah Freedom's network is still crap. Even after all these years of supposedly upgrades. I was in the middle of Markham earlier in the week getting 3G...WTF, and North Toronto area with 1 bar of LTE.. But there billing is perfect no hassles what so ever.
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Indeed it’s far from perfect but it’s certainly a lot better than it was in the Wind days, and aside from the great deal I am getting I stick with them simply to avoid giving my money to the big three.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Did you have international roaming disabled on your account? With Freedom it is an option that can be turned off and is separate from US roaming. You also need to make sure that you have any “data roaming“ options enabled on your phone - I’ve seen this complaint from a lot of people on Reddit and that often turns out to be what the problem was.



That’s almost enough to make be consider switching, but I’ll probably stay with Freedom - through a combination of grandfathered plans, discount codes, and bonus data add-ons I currently have around 80 gigs of anywhere Canada data as well as unlimited US roaming (I’ll be at throttled after one gig, but it’s still usable) for $32/month, same in my wife’s account. When we are travelling in the USA (which won’t be for the foreseeable future at this point anyways) and need more data I just pick up a cheap eSIM, ditto when travelling internationally.



Indeed it’s far from perfect but it’s certainly a lot better than it was in the Wind days, and aside from the great deal I am getting I stick with them simply to avoid giving my money to the big three.
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Everything is turned on. No reason to disable it as I have something like 20 gigs international on each phone and only use a fraction of that each month.
 
GreyGhost said:
Everything is turned on. No reason to disable it as I have something like 20 gigs international on each phone and only use a fraction of that each month.
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On the Freedom website and your phone?

I have a friend who switched and had a similar problem and found out that the overseas roaming was toggled off on their account. USA and international are separate on your account settings page.

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One also needs to make sure that they are connected to the right roaming partner network wherever you are, which may require manually locking your phone via the cellular settings – i.e. when we were on the tiny Bahamas out-island of Eleuthera last year there were two cell phone networks (believe it or not for an island that is only something like 100 km long and a 1 kilometre wide at its widest lol) and I was only able to roam on one network but not the other.
 
PrivatePilot said:
On the Freedom website and your phone?

I have a friend who switched and had a similar problem and found out that the overseas roaming was toggled off on their account. USA and international are separate on your account settings page.

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One also needs to make sure that they are connected to the right roaming partner network wherever you are, which may require manually locking your phone via the cellular settings – i.e. when we were on the tiny Bahamas out-island of Eleuthera last year there were two cell phone networks (believe it or not for an island that is only something like 100 km long and a 1 kilometre wide at its widest lol) and I was only able to roam on one network but not the other.
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Interesting. Something else to ask them about. I have Roam Beyond Data but it's not listed on the feature page. My phone has data roaming on as almost 100% of the time at home I am technically roaming as Freedom is useless here. I tried manually selecting carriers in DR and nothing ever changed. It would connect to at least one, would not connect to at least one but I never had data and I think the phone maybe worked once for a few minutes and then down again.

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Roam Beyond in over 100 Destinations
These features are available on partners’ networks in the destinations listed below. Your phone will display the partner’s network name when connected to a partner’s network in the destinations. Your phone may display a roaming icon when outside of the Freedom network.
Unlimited Talk includes unlimited domestic calling while in the included destinations, unlimited calls to Canada from the included destinations, and unlimited incoming calls. Calls between included destinations will incur pay-per-use charges.
Unlimited Text includes unlimited global text, picture, and video messaging.

Current destinations included (subject to change; destinations may be added or removed):
Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa
Americas: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, United States (USA)
Asia: China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Macao, Malaysia, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saba, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, US Virgin Islands
Europe: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, England (UK), Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland (UK), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Scotland (UK), Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City, Wales (UK)
Oceania: Australia, New Zealand
 
Be careful with having your phone forced to avoid the freedom network 100% of the time, eventually you will run afoul of the fair use policy, and I think that they just tightened it up even more to avoid the “permanent roaming” situation which of course cost them a lot more money than native access on their own towers.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Be careful with having your phone forced to avoid the freedom network 100% of the time, eventually you will run afoul of the fair use policy, and I think that they just tightened it up even more to avoid the “permanent roaming” situation which of course cost them a lot more money than native access on their own towers.
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That's an address based restriction. I think people were signing up in areas with no freedom at all (eg rural north ON) and then using roaming 100% of the time to have a functional phone. I don't have my phone set to exclude freedom, it connects to it while I'm at home, realizes that it can't call or use data and then switches to a nationwide (probably rogers). From my house to the nearest edge of the subscription area is over 30 km (and to be clear, I'm inside the area).
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