Travel to Canada

T-Mobile's coverage in Canada is mostly provided by the Bell/Telus network.  It is fairly decent coverage depending on where you are going in Canada.  If you are heading up to one of the territories, then service might be limited or non-existent due to it just being incredibly rural.  Major cities like Toronto  Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnepeg will all have excellent coverage. 

Make sure your plan includes Canada and understand what it comes with.  The Magenta Plan I have as an example, includes calling and texting to and from Canada at no extra cost with up to 5GB of high speed data.  Exceeding that drops me down to almost unusable slow speeds that would not be good enough to use any sort of Map app for directions. 

Give Customer Care a call at 611 or reach out to T-Mobile via DM on Facebook or Twitter.  Have them make sure that international roaming is enabled on your account, have them confirm your plan includes Canada for calling, texting, and roing, and see what data add-ons are available for your plan if you intend on using more data that what your plan might provide.  

The 15's have decent modems.  The 13 is more than likely an Intel modem.  It's a good time to upgrade that one to the 16 in a few weeks.  

The better service in southern Ontario is on Rogers (AT&T).  They use a lot of the lower band like band 71 that T-Mobile uses.  They were T-Mobile's roaming partner back pre-2016 but Rogers is kind of like Verizon in the sense that their service is good in more populated areas but is terrible or nonexistent in rural areas. 

syaoran wrote:

The 15's have decent modems.  The 13 is more than likely an Intel modem.  It's a good time to upgrade that one to the 16 in a few weeks.  

The better service in southern Ontario is on Rogers (AT&T).  They use a lot of the lower band like band 71 that T-Mobile uses.  They were T-Mobile's roaming partner back pre-2016 but Rogers is kind of like Verizon in the sense that their service is good in more populated areas but is terrible or nonexistent in rural areas. 

I'll agree with that for the most part.  One exception - NW Ontario where Rogers ≈ TBayTel.  North of Lake Superior.  Rogers (TBaytel ≈ Superior Wireless) has most of the coverage on highway 17 from the Sault to Manitoba.  Bellus (Bell/Telus) is adding - but has larger gaps - nothing between many towns.

Depending on your plan you should be fine but @syaoran is better versed in Canadian coverage.

I was just in Ontario for the last two days in the Brockville area right along the 401.  I had purchased the two days of extended international coverage.  Mainly for the data for my Maps and Facebook, etc.. The coverage on voice was good, but the data coverage was hideous.  I should've saved my money and just driven from Tim Hortons to Tim Hortons.  One of our iPhones was connected to "Bell" the other to "Telus" which was confusing.  It's Canada for goodness sakes.  Figure this out already.  

The device you are using does make a difference.  Bell/Telus use a lot of mid-band for connectivity.  That doesn't work too well on overly congested networks.  This is not a T-Mobile issue.  It is the roaming partner in combination with your device.  If you're unlucky enough to have an iPhone with an Intel modem.  That is probably the main issue but the sparse deployment of Canadian networks doesn't help with weaker cellular modems.

I don't have any complaints when I am up I'm Canada but I am using an s23 Ultra.  I usually travel between Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Oakville, Mississauga, Innisfil, Toronto, Cobourg, Peterborough, and Belleville when in Ontario.  Sometimes London, Brantford, and St. Thomas as well.

Yeah one was an iPhone 15 ProMax and one a 13 ProMax.  Very well could be different modems.  

As a dual citizen - much of your service will most likely be on Bell (was in Northern Ontario in July), and 5G service - rural isn't bad these days either.  You'll have a difficult time hitting Rogers - I have had it work in the past.  +300Mbps in Sault Ste. Marie, ON.  

Brockville is in that 'gap' between Kingston and Montreal.  Service was 'meh' a few years back when I crossed the border near Alexandria Bay.  TBH, it was worse in upstate NY on T-Mobile and I was actually often roaming on a weak site (or 2) from Canada.  I didn't spend much time near that area - but travelled down to Cobourg and had no issues.  Don't forget after ~5GB you'll be throttled.

formercanuck wrote:

syaoran wrote:

The 15's have decent modems.  The 13 is more than likely an Intel modem.  It's a good time to upgrade that one to the 16 in a few weeks.  

The better service in southern Ontario is on Rogers (AT&T).  They use a lot of the lower band like band 71 that T-Mobile uses.  They were T-Mobile's roaming partner back pre-2016 but Rogers is kind of like Verizon in the sense that their service is good in more populated areas but is terrible or nonexistent in rural areas. 

I'll agree with that for the most part.  One exception - NW Ontario where Rogers ≈ TBayTel.  North of Lake Superior.  Rogers (TBaytel ≈ Superior Wireless) has most of the coverage on highway 17 from the Sault to Manitoba.  Bellus (Bell/Telus) is adding - but has larger gaps - nothing between many towns.

I haven't been up that far in forever.  I love Algonquin Park in the fall but that's as far as I have been up that way since COVID.

I haven’t been around as much of Ontario as I used to, since I’ve been in SoCal, but with the +105F (see road trips).

Planning next summer already  Buffalo → Dunlop Lake → Ottawa (OWL river tours) → Buffalo

If work allows, remote work for 1 month at Dunlop Lake (Starlink internet is included there)

I’ve been through most of the north - Hwy 17 (and 11) from Thunderbay through Ottawa, spent years in Niagara, Ottawa and north of Lake Superior.