Forum Discussion
recent Alaska users
I am about to go and spend a year in Alaska working. I was Sprint but now on the T-Mobile network. When I spoke with T-Mobile today they said when I go through Canada to turn on roaming and the only ...
Unless things have changed recently Tmobile has no native coverage in Alaska and roams off the GCI network, so after a few months you may get your account closed for excessive Roaming.
https://community.t-mobile.com/coverage-signal-32/roaming-violation-40940
We spent 5 months working in Alaska the summer of 2023 and we are going back again to work this summer.
First off, I'm not sure why the rep told you that you would pay for calls in Canada. T-Mobile plans include unlimited calls/text and limited data in Canada and Mexico. That was the main reason we switched to them. We spent 2 months in Canada the first year we switched to TM and a month in Canada on our way to Alaska last year and had no extra charges at all. And we used our phones a lot.
BUT even though T-mobile has a contract with AK main cell provider, it is still considered roaming. They ended up canceling my husband's acct. right before we left Alaska to head back home. So he lost the use of his phone until we got back to the lower 48 and got it reinstated. Every time I got a warning text I called TM trying to get them to work with us and to not shut us off. I begged, offered to pay a fee to keep service, anything! But they refused. I'm not sure why they didn't cancel my acct but I am very thankful they didn't or we would have been on the road in Canada without cell service.
TM suggested we buy a different phone and go thru a different provider while in AK.
Not an affordable option.
I’m still trying to figure out the best way to have cell service while in Alaska again this summer.
