— 2024-06-20 – Thursday – update after returning
- bought a Cricket SIM + 30GB plan; I think Katherine got this to work in hers.
- bought a Family Mobile (Walmart / Tracphone?) sime and ??GB plan; Katherine bought this but could not get to work in here phone; she got the Cricket one to work, so we traded
- eventually got Family Walmart one to work in Joan’s phone (spec/model?), but not in mine (Galaxy A13 5G SM-A136W) nor my small tablet (Galaxy Tab A SM-T307U); might be able to diff these models specs to see what is missing on my phone or tablet, or what to look for when buying next phone
- ffs, why is this so difficult; 20+ years ago in Venezuela it was a trivial thing, and in India, and in Middle East. need to write a rant on this
- need to determine how to leave it dormant until next USA trip
- 2024-06-20 – Thursday –
maybe use Larry’s USA burner phone?got from mom, will test next time in USA
— 2024-06-01 – was thinking we could use Freedom Mobile’s add-on:
freedom mobile – on way into the usa, we’ll be offered a 1-month USA roaming for $20; i did this when we went to get Jimmy at the Buffalo airport, and it was easy to do at the time; as we crossed into the usa, i got a text, followed the link, and it was activated. easy-peasy.
HOWEVER!!!!
on looking at the bill, its C$20 + “International Roaming & Nationwide Usage” fees; this was for a ~2 hour trip from Fort Erie to Buffalo airport to Fort Erie, so we will face a huge bill if we use this service for both phone for ~6 days in USA.
so if 1 phone does 178MB in ~3 hours in usa (60MB / hr), very light usage (looked up a few things on maps, checked emails, etc.), if i extrapolate to 18 hours / day x 6 days = 108 hours x 60MB / hr =6480MB x 0.03$ / hour = C$195 for 1 phone for the trip. Probs 2x that if we do both phones (or if tethered either way), so ~400$.
this is too much. might be able to reduce by not doing much with phones, but that’s awkward.
maybe we can get a USA sim?
