Visiting Canada with your new iPad hoping for data? Good luck!
If you are a non-Canadian (also known as "someone with no Canadian credit history") who is planning a trip to Canada with a non-Canadian iPad, .. and are hoping to just "pop in a local SIM to get connected", as Apple advertises... good luck!
It seems as if the Canadian tel-coms have left out of their launch of their new iPad data plans, how they will accomodate this process.
DISCLAIMER.. I have not called Bell & TELUS to see if their policies are the same. I am not a Rogers employee, just a current US customer using their pay as you go plan on my iPad 1 when I am in Canada, spending hours and hours trying to figure out how to do the same thing with my new non-Canadian iPad.
After another 1.5 hour session with Rogers today I found out more about using a non-Canadian new iPad on their network. As has been reported on here several times, there is NOT a pre-paid option and the shortest amount of time to buy a plan is a month.
1- You HAVE to set up an account with them which means they run a credit check on you from your country. So make sure you will be in Canada long enough for this process to occur.
You will need to present in person at a Rogers store.
- 2 forms of ID
- Your home billing address
- A Canadian address
- Your social security (SIN) number
- A credit card llinked to either your home address or the Canadian Address
2- Your acount will not be activated until the credit check is done.. so don't walk in thinking you will walk out with an active data plan.. their best guess was 24-48 hours later when the credit check is back.
3- At that point (if you passed the credit check) your approval will work it's way back to a customer service reps and they will call you and walk you through the activation process.
4- You will need to pay an activation fee (unless you get in on one of their specials where it is waived).
5- You need to choose a data plan based on your needs (see their website). If you will only be in Canada for a short time, you will more than likely want the month by month plan which requires no contract. NOTE THIS: You need to give then 30 day notice of discontinuing the plan otherwise they will charge you until 30 days after you do.Which means if you will only be in the Canada for less than a month, MAKE SURE you tell them when it is activated that you wish to deactivate as well..
6- Once you make it this far...they will need your IMEI # from your new iPad.. some here have reported that Rogers CSReps have told them they can not look up non-Canadian IMEI #'s in their database & therefore can not register it.. I was told if they tell you that, to tell the CSrep to input a generic one.. they apparently do it a lot with iPhones when activating data plans.
7- Be aware that a 3-G sim will NOT work in a new iPad (I had 3 customer service reps tell me to just use my old one)... and that even when you get to the stage where you have an activated LTE canadian SIM in your non-Canadian iPad.. there are few locations through out the country where you will actually achieve LTE speeds as the network is limited.. You will more than likely get 4G in metro areas and 3G in more remote areas.
8- If this process seems insane to you.. and you wish to register a complaint and ask for a different process.. please use the email found in the Rogers Support link on their webpage.. I was told that is the only way an issue like this will work it's way up the 'food chain' to someone who can effect change to this unweidly if not impossible way for visitors to Canada with no Canadian credit history and non- Canadian new iPads to get data.
