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Comment by mtw | Hacker News Reader

Can this do voice calls? I'm in Canada where every cell plan is more expensive than any other in the world. I have friends who purchase plans from Europe and then use the SIM locally with roaming - turns out it be 10x cheaper, the only drawback being that they have a foreign number

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PM for Super SIM here. We're not planning on doing voice calls for the Super SIM, we want to really nail the IoT use case first.

I use a data-only cell plan ("tablet" plan from Fido), $15/month for 3 GB.

For voice calls, I use a SIP account from voip.ms, which mostly goes to voicemail (SIP kind of drains cellphone battery). I rarely use voice, and people usually text because calling, and most use Signal/Whatsapp anyway. The voip.ms account is also useful for doing SMS, and associating apps with it (such as Signal/WhatsApp).

This is exactly what I do too, but unfortunately I don't think you can get the tablet plan any more without attaching it to a "real" plan.

This isn't for personal use, so no calls. The data rate is probably around 2-5c/MB for Canada (though its not on the pricing list, that seems to be average), which puts it above even Rogers consumer plans. Google Fi is intended for consumer use and is 1c/MB in Canada (up to a cap, and then unlimited).

It's hard to tell if this is similar to their programmable SIM offering or not...

I have programmable SIM deployed in my iOS test phones and use it to place calls and texts from the phones (no contract is nice). I also pay about 12.5$/GB because I have the higher commit turned off

"This isn't for personal use, so no calls."

Very little of Twilio is for "personal use" but you can still deploy it as such and there is another class of Twilio SIM product (programmable SIM) that you can do anything (voice, sms, etc.) you want with.

I have built my own little personal telco out of twilio and couldn't be happier ...

Well, except for an <email> verb in twiml - that would make me much happier ...

I can relate. I just paid a total of CA$50 for a 1GB prepaid SIM card. Crazy stuff. I don't understand how nobody appears offering half prices, it's clearly possible given they are overcharging a whole lot right now... and doing so seems that would win a lot of customers instantaneously

They say voice won't work in Canada but that data does; I haven't been able to get either to work. But for $3 USD + usage per month I can use SMS.

How expensive is a cell phone plan in Canada?

On the main carriers, a 1GB data plan with unlimited Canada-wide calling is $100 after tax. (Occasionally, there will be a discount that all of the carriers do simultaneously where a few GB is added to each plan for free, and you can drive the price down a bit if you've been with them for a while and threaten to leave.)

Each of the big 3 carriers (Rogers, Bell, Telus) also has a "budget" subsidiary brand (Fido, Virgin, Koodo), where the same plan is $50 or $60. However, customer service is absolutely terrible and they ding you for absolutely everything. For example, if you ever need to call customer service, there's a $35 service charge.

This is for Ontario; other provinces have local carriers (Sasktel, Videotron, etc.), but I'm sure pricing is pretty much the same.

Oh, and roaming in the US costs an extra $10 per day to use your regular plan, even if you only send a single SMS. Best not to use it at all or get a local SIM if you're going to be there for a while.

Is that $100 CAD? If so, that's <$75 USD, which is more than we pay in the US, but not insanely so -- most people I know pay 50-60USD (not including any device payments).

Verizon charges about $80 for unlimited data.

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