Washington State iPhone Users

[Jammer Six]

I'm going to buy an iPhone 6, and I'll probably choose a different provider.

If you sail in the Salish Sea,

1. Which provider do you use?
2. Where do you sail?
3. Why do you use this provider?
4. How much data do you use?

For coverage reasons, I'm not interested in opinions from other areas.

Thanks!

[billr]

I asked a similar question to another boat owner in the yard. Turned out he did consulting in communications. He used 3 providers for Washington: ATT, Sprint, and one other which I forget. He said that was the only way he could be certain of getting connected. He did mention that service was much better away from Seattle because more rural areas tend to often have over-capacity than does the city. In the Anacortes area, ATT works OK most of the time.
billr

[Macblaze]

I was going to say once you get up into Canada, Telus is probably got the best coverage so find out who has a roaming agreement with them. But then I started looking into it and seems a whole hell of a lot more complicated than that.

Still, a bunch of us went Vancouver to the Broughtons last summer and those with Telus had the best overall coverage. For what its worth...

[Pyxis156]

I found that off the beaten path in the South Sound my friend generally had better coverage with Verizon than I did with Sprint. However, Sprint recently upgraded their network in this area and now I seem to get as good or better coverage than he does in the South Sound up to about Port Ludlow. Haven't been to the San Juans recently to see if things have changed for Sprint up there.

When we cruised through Canadian waters, we added international roaming to our plan and it was quite reasonable, I think only 10 or 15 dollars for unlimited voice and texts in Canada for a month. Data was quite a bit more so we went on a limited roaming plan for data. With the roaming we just used whatever carrier had the best signal.

Hope this helps.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[kenL]

I cruised up in the Straits of Georgia and in the Gulf Islands this year for two weeks and did not upgrade my service with Horizon and had no coverage from the time I got near Vancouver island about 12 miles from Port Angeles for the whole trip until I entered American Waters again. I was told that I had to change plans to be covered in Canada.

[Crabber50]

We have good luck and coverage with Verizon, for an additional $15 per month you can add unlimited Canadian phone and text. Then for $25 you can buy a small block of data (100mb), it auto rolls over so you will get a text telling you that you have used your $25 data allowance and are being charged another $25. This is about 4X less expensive then roaming. But still very expensive. With Verizon we tend to have better coverage then others in our group.

We spend a good deal of time in Canadian waters and looking into getting a data only account with a Canadian provider. Not sure the best one or way to do this though.

[Cheechako]

I have called a US number from the US SJ islands and found out later that my call was routed through BC... roaming charges applied! (AT&T)

[northwestsailor]

We use Verizon and don't regret the quality of service but hate the company and their support. When in Canada we switch over to the Canada/Mexico plan. In Alaska ATT is the company of choice.

For data we use about one GB per month because we use WIFI whenever possible. In Canada we use Telus not Rogers for data for the iPads and not data over the phone because Verizon charges two arms and two legs for it in Canada and overseas.

[_QB_]

T-Mobile "Simple Choice" here. Partners with Rogers in Canada. Unlimited free texting and data in Canada, $0.20 per minute flat rate voice. Tethering included, so you don't need a separate line for your tablets. Coverage was good up to Gabriola, spotty after that.

[zengirl]

Originally Posted by Jammer Six

I'm going to buy an iPhone 6, and I'll probably choose a different provider.

If you sail in the Salish Sea,

1. Which provider do you use?
2. Where do you sail?
3. Why do you use this provider?
4. How much data do you use?

For coverage reasons, I'm not interested in opinions from other areas.

Thanks!

I have iphone5 and consistently travel all over America and Canada with Verizon. They have more towers than anyone. I never get dropped calls.
For $25 extra you can have them set you up for Canada when you leave the states and then when you return to states call them and have the Canadian service terminated. Never a problem on islands off Vancouver or state of Wash. Just noticed all the Verizon recommendations. I pay $140 a month for phone and unlimited mess, unlimited calls, 3GB data

[northwestsailor]

You won't find any provider but Verizon in Neah Bay.

[AKMark]

We sailed up the Washington coast, to Neah Bay, Port Angeles & the San Juans this summer. I have AT&T and frequently had no signal. A guy on our crew had Verizon and almost always had signal. He even had signal when we were many miles off the coast.

This convinced me to switch to Verizon, which we are doing this month.