Your mobile phone coverage
When I moved to Gabriola, a little over six years ago, I had to give up my Fido GSM digital phone that I had used in Vancouver, because it only worked at my new home if I stood in the northeast corner of the mostly northerly room in the house. That seemed to be the limit of the digital network coverage for Gabriola, despite the enthusiastic map provided by Rogers that indicated the whole island to be within their coverage area. I went to Nanaimo, bought a CDMA phone and signed up with Telus, and more recently switched to Bell.
Recently, though, I was talking with someone who has one of the newer Apple iPhones, and who reported getting a good signal at various places on Gabriola. At the moment I have a Palm Pre smart phone, which is pretty good as a phone but kind of lame in terms of the number and quality of apps available. I selected that model pretty much solely because it was available as a CDMA phone, so I knew it would work at my house and elsewhere on Gabriola where I’d be likely to need it. Now I’m wondering if, when I replace this phone, I might be able to switch to a GSM phone and, hence, have more options (including better options when travelling, as CDMA only works in North America).
So, by way of an informal survey, I’m interested to know what kind of mobile phones Gabriolan readers and their friends have, who their service providers are, and how they find the reception on various parts of the island.
[I'm aware that another, perennial topic on Gabriola regarding mobile phones has to do with towers and concerns about radio waves. I'm not really hoping to ignite such a discussion here, but if commentators do wish to indulge please bring science.]
Filed in Gabriola Island 7 Comments so far
7 Responses to “Your mobile phone coverage”
greydawn on 10 Dec 2011 at 7:02 pm #
south end! telus.
skadhu on 10 Dec 2011 at 8:54 pm #
When I moved to Gabriola, a little over six years ago, I had to give up my Fido GSM digital phone that I had used in Vancouver, because it only worked at my new home if I stood in the northeast corner of the mostly northerly room in the house.
Perhaps you could regard the search for the perfect spot as an artistic statement on the topic of communication?
Current coverage: Virgin. Seems to be fairly good, in that we have no trouble at home. Haven’t done a study of alternatives. But I’m not their demographic, and the insistent, extraordinarily irritating cuteness of their approach is wearing. Considering an iPhone with Bell when I get a new phone (which may be soon if the 1 key keeps sticking).
Steve on 11 Dec 2011 at 1:35 pm #
At home (Whalebone) have to place the cell phone in northeast second floor window and it gets four bars off of a telus tower on a hill above Gibsons Landing. Then goes by Bluetooth into my home phones from the cell phone. Luckily it is not LD.
Anon E Mouse on 12 Dec 2011 at 10:26 am #
skadhu, I know what you mean. Clearly, I am not in the target demographic for Virgin either. By the way, be prepared for some additional frustration in the event that you do decide to cancel your account with them. We had a rarely-used phone that we had purchased a few years back and put on a month to month contract with them, which eventually died. Given that it was supposedly an emergency phone, and saw precious little use (few emergencies, and then we usually (a) didn’t have the phone with us or (b) battery was dead) we decided not to bother replacing it and to cancel the contract. Well, that took 3 phone calls and I think I spoke with 7 or 8 people, almost all of whom attempted to sell me more phone coverage even after I explained that I was calling to cancel the old number as I had no use for another phone. This may be simpler for you, if you have not forgotten the old phone number or lost your password. In order to cancel we had to more or less re-sign up and totally update our account information first, which seemed highly pointless to me. Although I had no strong feelings either for or against Virgin during the time we had the phone with them, this runaround during the cancellation process annoyed me enough that I will never have another phone with them. And they never seem to give up; even last week, I received a cute little letter in the snail mail from them, something to the effect of We’ve noticed your account is inactive, call us to fix this. (Well, that’s not going to happen. Besides, what account?)
Mats on 12 Dec 2011 at 7:02 pm #
I’m using an “old” (only a couple of years old) Sony Ericsson GMS phone I brought over from Europe, as getting a phone here seemed expensive and complicated compared to what I’m used to.
I’m using the prepaid SpeakOut service that you can buy at 7-Eleven stores.
They sell phones, SIM-cards and airtime. SpeakOut uses Rodgers GSM network.
It’s not a smart-phone and I don’t really use my phone a lot.
I guess it’s a good deal if you want to have a phone, but not really use it.
But yeah, the GSM coverage on Gabriola is very spotty to say the least.
I’ve also seen that coverage map from Rodgers, but the reality is different.
It works in my home, and that’s good enough for me right now.
Due to differing frequencies on European 3G phones I can only use the GPRS part of the network.
It’s possible that you could get better coverage if you can connect to the 3G network, but I doubt it.
I remember correctly CDMA inherently covers bigger distances and that could explain why it works much better here on Gabriola, but I’m not 100% on that.
island girl on 16 Dec 2011 at 8:35 pm #
my experience is that telus has the best coverage on the island. my husband had telus and I had rogers when we moved here 5 years ago. in the mean time we changed phones but not the service providers and notice no differnce in reception with better newer phones (e.g. BB storm). I do not like Telus for many reasons, but if you want the best cell phone reception, Telus is the way to go in my opinion. I have reception almost everywhere here with Telus.
John Hudson on 16 Dec 2011 at 9:40 pm #
Thanks for all the information and suggestions, everyone. I’ve been able to confirm that the GSM signal in my neighbourhood has improved a lot since I last checked six years ago, so I at least have the option of a decent smart phone that I’ll also be able to use when travelling outside of North America. I’m still concerned about the poor signal elsewhere on the island, so maybe I’ll get a super cheap pay-as-you-go CDMA phone for emergencies.