Seems to me it is a moving target because of competition. The cheapest today may not be the cheapest tomorrow. You might look at planhub. Prices can vary from Province to Province because of competition.

Koodo had a great pay as you go plan at one time. No idea if they still have it.

 

I use Lucky Mobile (owned by Bell). $19 monthly plan; Unlimited Canada-Wide Calling, & Unlimited Canada-wide & International Texts. No data unless you do auto top-up and then you get 500MB . Pretty basis but works just fine for me. No contracts, pay as you go just buy a Top-up at IE: Walmart and load it directly on your phone. I do not even have an online account setup, no need really.

 

You may wish to consider which carrier(s) have decent coverage in the hospital and other locations the senior occupies. Most seniors don't have a wide travel area, but we want their phone to work in all those places.

 

Re nflder61 reply above…
I’ve heard horror stories about these prepaid plans & their ”top-ups” etc. seems like once they get you hook on a monthly pre-paid plan its very difficult to stoo the plan payments etc. if you want to cancel, or tgey ding you for other charges..?🤷‍♂️

 

I don't have a payment plan, i purchase a specific dollar amount and add that amount only to keep the line active via my handset.

 

Op : on another note, on a short trip to US last year I took a chance on a Jethro Mobile short-term plan(bought thru amazon) Got a sim card & set up a US phone number to use while there. 30-day plan for $20cdn.
Easy setup & worked fine. But I dont think they offer it for use within canada.
Do we have similar plans here? Where you just commit to one payment, for 1 month or whatever, and thats it?
No ongoing monthly charges onto your credit card? If where are they?

 

Google Koodo, usually good deals including pay as you go.

 

If they have a newer cellphone then Freedom mobile. $99 for a year. Unlimited talk and 5 cents a text.

The cool thing about Freedom mobile is that it’ll roam onto any of the Canadian providers if they don’t have any nearby towers.

I have the older plan $120/year with unlimited talk text and 15gb/year. Now it’s $130 with 20gb/year.

 

If they have a newer cellphone then Freedom mobile. $99 for a year. Unlimited talk and 5 cents a text.

The cool thing about Freedom mobile is that it’ll roam onto any of the Canadian providers if they don’t have any nearby towers.

Freedom is pretty interesting, and I might set up my mom with this.

Freedom Mobile's prepaid with the $99 (annual) payment is intriguing. For $99 you can do unlimited talking. How do the texting charges work? Texts will costs 5 cents per outgoing message.

Just wondering how this works in practice. Do you have to make sure the account balance is $99 + some extra $ for the texting, if you're sending messages?

 

Phone wud be used mainly for phone CALLS, NOT TEXTING. and may want free calls to US including.
Has her own phone- Apple iphone. (but no SIM)
thinking maybe a month by month pay as you go deal? Dont know…

Note the requirement for possible calls to USA.
- Monthly plans from Freedom appear to provide this.

Prepaid Phone Plans | Freedom Mobile

Stop paying too much for data. Shop now for cell phone plans on our Freedom Nationwide network. Find a plan that fits your needs today!

shop.freedommobile.ca

• Lucky Mobile appear to have an option to make occasional international calls
• Koodoo monthly plans seem to have optional add-ons for US calls.

There are no doubt other options. It is all quite complicated. And you need to read and understand the small print.

On a different issue re basic cell phone plans:
In another thread regarding possible demise of Speakout 7-11, some of us are looking for a pay as you go plan to replace Speakout. I posted following about Freedom and Koodoo. (Neither it seems have possibility of calling USA.)

Koodoo

The above plans require purchase of a 360 day plan. May not be the best bet for a hospital visit. Same companies along with Lucky Mobile have monthly plans, that although more costly annually, may be better for a shorter term hospital visit.

Most hospitals do have WIFI, so an internet based VOIP plan might work for US calls. I have Google Voice and use it that way, but it can't be bought in Canada. Skype used to be an option, but it has gone. Some use Whatsap, but then I believe both ends of call need it (good if set up for family members)

I hope others may have better suggestions that meet J3000s friend's needs.

 

Freedom also supports WiFi calling. This means that even if you are overseas you can use your phone over WiFi to make calls that are consistent with our plan. So if you are in the hospital and have decent WiFi then you will be able to receive calls. Please make sure that the $99 plan has it. My $119 plan allows WiFi calling and my SO used it overseas once.

As for the paying of outgoing text messages, just make sure you have an extra $5 in your account. We rarely use SMS anymore, we mostly use messaging apps like Whatsapp, FB messengar and Google chat.

Also, I don't recommend the annual plans for the elderly who want to use "a little" data. This is because if you leave it on it'll just drain and if you don't know what you are doing then you'll just use it all up in a month or so. To use it for emergencies means you'll need to turn data on and off which may be too much for a senior.

 

To use it for emergencies means you'll need to turn data on and off which may be too much for a senior.

On my Android phone, it has an option to use wifi if available first before using data. If that switch is on, what other uses would consume data?

 

There's noname mobile. $19/month You can just pay month to month, or setup auto payment. Uses the Bell network. Unlimited calls Canada wide and to the US https://www.nonamemobile.ca/en/plans/

 

Nothing much new here, but this does summarize what has and is happening re Speakout and others:

SpeakOut wireless, other MVNOs struggle with Rogers amid 3G shutdown

I have to imagine that at this point Rogers really regrets being the first network in Canada to shut down its 3G considering how many hurdles have popped up.

mobilesyrup.com

Looks like no matter which MVNO network we are on, trouble looms and we may or may not need a new phone. Seems clear that the annual plans with $25 top ups are a thing of the past. It was good while it lasted. Might as well look for best alternative now if we want to keep our number. Or wait until existing Speakout plan completely dies and then start anew with a new number and perhaps new phone too.

 

Looks like no matter which MVNO network we are on, trouble looms and we may or may not need a new phone. Seems clear that the annual plans with $25 top ups are a thing of the past. It was good while it lasted. Might as well look for best alternative now if we want to keep our number. Or wait until existing Speakout plan completely dies and then start anew with a new number and perhaps new phone too.

And the question becomes: what is the cheapest price for a minimal mobile service, in this new environment?

Currently, I think the services that are roughly $100 a year would be the cheapest (bare bones) services.

 

There are not many plans that don't include data so you will end up paying for that feature whether you want to or not.

Does the hospital provide free wifi? If your friend has an iphone, it might just be easier to connect to the hospital network and use a free service such as mysecondline.

I use freedom mobile and pay just $19 a month (OK $21 with taxes) and that gives unlimited calling as well as a small 1GB data allowance.

 

I came across this provider on RFD: Postpaid plans

They say they have a prepaid plan that costs just $9/month. Sounds good, but only for those who live in

Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut