Cell Phones

I'm a little late to the conversation, was in Thunder Bay last week. Good times.

We switched from Rogers to Bell a couple of years back. We were with Palm (remember them!!?) years ago, then Blackberry as it was a step up when Palm pretty much stopped supporting and was no longer compatible with software we were using at the time (Act! for CRM). Now, we have a split of iPhones and Samsung S4/S5's and really love them. I've got a Samsung and use it as a hotspot with my Surface when I need to (side of the road, friends house, back yard, vineyard, etc...) log in and access any paperwork or customs broker information for a carrier who is near the border but Livingston or UPS have neglected their duties for 3 days. I'm pretty sure Francis has a windows phone and loves it. Technology sure has come a long way since I started here, having 24 hour access to everything a carrier or customer needs is part of why they prefer to do business with us.

Sorry if I missed your call last week - there was no cell service on Surprise Lake. The Rogers customers had service though as they are in partnership with Tbay Tel.

Keep well,
Mike
 
Is anybody using regular voice phone service with drivers in the US?

I'm talking real voice, not Bell PTT or anything that uses data, just an old-school cell phone service.

Reason I am asking, we are going through quotes from providers and it seems difficult to get a Canadian phone company to provide anything more than 1000 roaming minutes per month while in the US.

Curious if someone has unlimited minutes or large number of minutes and what they are paying for that.
 
jc you are better to get phones in the States, you will not find a Canadian plan that will work for you, we do not supply our drivers with phones but they get phones for $40 to $60 unlimited in North America the only catch is they can call and receive from Canada but cannot use it inside of Canada.
 
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Thanks Lowmiler.

Yes, I have been enticed by some drivers coming in showing off their cheap US phones... Prices are good, but I really need these phones to be useable on both sides of the border.

It's probably cheaper to have the drivers carry two phones... But not sure if I want to do that.
 
We still have not found a better option for US then Boost Mobile. You pay $40 a month for unlimited talk text and data (although the data slows down after 2gb) and add $5 extra for unlimited calls to Canada. Boost has decent coverage along most highways etc. Once you get out of highly populated areas, it is iffy. But it still is the best we have found for the money. They don't work in Canada. Any driver I know that uses Boost Mobile also has a separate phone for Canada. But the good part is they can phone and talk to their families in Canada or use an internet app to even call family overseas and there are no overages.
 
Michael Ludwig said:
@jonny-chicken ... We are with Bell and they charge us straight up 25 cents a minute. No package deals that are over or under.
Click to expand...

So you are paying 25 cents/minute for North America wide long distance/roaming? Or is that just 25 cents/minute of US Roaming? Or 25 cents/minute of calling Canada from USA?

Thanks for the info.

When I am done with my quotes I will post on here the best deal I can find so others may benefit also.
 
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We have had most of our drivers purchase a TRAKFONE which they purchase at Walmart in the US for something around 75$ with minutes included. They are 'pay by use' Minute cards that are also purchased at Walmart and, we get them tripled that way. So we buy 200 and get 600 minutes with each card. They are Android phones and this allows us to communicate by texting them. Boss uses a sight called TEXT'EM and with that it permits her to keep track with the communications of each driver. The phone also allows them to Google Map when ever they need too. They cannot use them in Canada but we have minimum programs with Telus that they use in Canada
 
Thanks F1 Freight, for the lead on T-Mobile. Looks pretty good. Prices appear to be half or cheaper of what Canadian carriers are offering. I just have to sift through the finer details.

Also, one problem I have encountered with them is that they require our business to have a US postal address and a credit card issued by a US Bank. They say that a PO box at UPS would not suffice, that it has to be a physical location, but I'm not so sure about that...

I am researching what is required to get a US address and credit card now. Anybody done this?
 
Anybody ever use the Sonim XP7 phone?

It is a rugged smartphone. Wondering if someone has any experience with these and can compare their performance to other smartphones.
 
We are using them (Sonim XP7), have been since May 2015... over 100 units in service in phase 1 of our roll out.

Handset itself is great, the problems we are having is app related and connectivity related to the app when re-establishing connection when dropping signals in elevators, basements of towers.

Handset have great battery life, seen first hand drivers drop it 4-5 feet on to a concrete warehouse floor without any problems, seen it get very wet/soaked and still work. Closest thing to MilSpec that you can find at that price point.
 
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Thanks EricG. That makes me feel less hesitant on these phones.

We just received a demo unit today and are trying it out for a week.

So far so good. It certainly looks/feels rugged, a little heavy but to be expected.

Touchscreen seems pretty responsive, apps are fast loading.

Only problem I found so far is the built-in camera app produces low quality pics, but I downloaded the Google camera app and it looks great now.
 
EricG said:
We currently have this unit deployed throughout of fleet of courier drivers, straights, and trailers. We use PTT, the PTT app, and a custom application for data entry/pod/notifications etc. Installation base is great than 100 units.

Units in the field now for 2 months, basically the XP7 is "drop proof, water proof" Battery seems great, unit is heavy, but it does the job... price points vary depending on # units purchased. We are using them on the Bell Network, formely we used Telus iDen PTT units, i.e. i365
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Hey Eric - Are you still using these phones or have you upgraded to something else? Also, do you have text and Internet on them or just 'talk'?
 
We currently are still using these devices, they are great, work well inside elevators and parking garages.

We have unlimited data, and voice, including PTT on these devices. they are integrated into our telephone headset system in the office, with desktop PTT features, as well as software based PTT features in Windows.

Battery life is great, no broken units yet due to dropping, water or anything like that.. they work well when left in a frozen car all night.

not cheap, but durable so far. Aug 2015 to Present with 100+ units in service...

We use FleetComplete as a our asset tracking software for our fleet. it uses the GPS on the phone, offers variable poll rates for GPS data.
 
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hauling_ass said:
Hey Eric - Are you still using these phones or have you upgraded to something else? Also, do you have text and Internet on them or just 'talk'?
Click to expand...

Hey Hauling_ass,

We use these SonimXP phones now too. Have had them since September last year and no problems as of yet. The drivers like them because they are so rugged that they don't have to be too careful with them. These have been dropped and rolled and kicked several times by now I'm sure.

We have voice, text and data plans on all these phones for both Canada and USA. Drivers use an app to scan paperwork and send it to dispatch electronically, instead of paying $50 for a fax...
 
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My boss is old school and currently our drivers have phones for talking only. His biggest concern is a driver just looking at his phone for a minute and being in an accident. His biggest rant - "How many times do you see a car weaving all over the road and why? Because the driver is texting or looking at his cell phone screen!"

How do any of you avoid this with your drivers?
 
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