Canadian roaming in US - why is internet cell so bad? Can it be better?

June 5, 2024 2:36 PM

I'm based in Canada and travel periodically to the US. I use Bell's roaming plan. In the US, the internet connection on my phone is *terrible*. Is there reason for this? Is there a way to make it better? (Right now I am in Healdsburg, CA, but I get pretty bad reception when I'm in bigger places, too...)
posted by ManInSuit to Technology (7 answers total)

I would just mention that since the beginning of May our Sun has been presenting pretty lights in the sky which also can have a negative influence on radio frequencies. I know my wife and I have had some occasions where we could not reach each other even though I was in Southern New Jersey and she was in Philadelphia. In the past we never had problems reaching each other cell to cell. Just a thought, might just be a coincidence.
posted by forthright at 3:28 PM on June 5

Cell phone carriers often deprioritize / limit speeds for other carriers piggybacking on their network to give their own customers the best service. Bell's roaming agreements may simply not provide you the level of performance with the roaming providers that their native customers experience.

Cell phone providers in different countries and areas also use different radio bands, and phones generally don't support all of the radio bands in use around the world - they're generally at least somewhat localized. Cell phone providers generally sell phones that have radio band support that's best for their own networks, but may not provide as good radio coverage used on other carrier networks or overseas.

As such, it's possible that you have a phone that lacks the bands used by the providers Bell has contracted with in the areas of the US that you're visiting.

Does your phone provide the name of the carrier you're roaming on? You could look up the bands that carrier supports in the US, and the bands the specific model number of your phone supports.
posted by eschatfische at 3:41 PM on June 5 [2 favorites]

Do you know if your phone has 4G or 5G? 3G is no longer supported in the US and this page from Bell shows which models support 5G.
posted by soelo at 5:31 PM on June 5

I experienced the same thing pre-pandemic using the free US roaming on my Vodafone Spain plan. My phone supported all frequency bands and 4G.

If you're willing to spend a little money, e-SIM services like Airalo are pretty cheap now, and I've found the internet speed to be decent.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 12:09 AM on June 6

Check your roaming plan - going the other way, using my Verizon data in Canada works fine (I end up on Telus, I think) but I only get a small amount of fast data and then it bonks down to 3G speeds* or something. This is a plan limitation, not a network or phone one. Canadian providers do the same thing but the specifics will be in your plan - you may just not have any allowance for fast (4G/5G) data and it may cap your data rate on a US provider.

* To be clear: I don't get dropped on a 3G network or anything but my bandwidth is capped at some sort of sub-1MBit speed or something, even though I'm connected to a network that can physically move more data.
posted by mrg at 8:07 AM on June 6

I had the reverse problem (US phone with bad service while in Canada). I spent some time on the phone with ATT-611 trying to troubleshoot and they eventually just made this option available under Settings/Cellular: "Network Selection". Now when I cross the border I can select the best network to use within Canada.
posted by pjenks at 7:51 PM on June 6

When I roam to the US my iPhone seems to gravitate to AT&T, which I find to be the least reliable. If you dig into your cellular settings you can try different providers. I find T-Mobile to be better.

There isn't any cost difference for the different providers (at least on Fido/Rogers), so you might as well try a few until you find one that works.
posted by kaefer at 1:52 PM on June 7