I have activated my sim after reading your reply - thank you and have added top up today.
Thank you for all your kind help.
p.s. i finally opted for wifi today

Presidents Choice Mobile is sometimes confused with Petro Canada Mobile, which is also a separate company that also does not have interchangeable credits. I never call either company PC Mobile because of the confusion issues.

Here are some things to consider with Presidents Choice Mobile Prepaid. http://www.pcmobile.ca/prepaid_home.jsp

The SIM card costs $10, but that comes with a $10 start-up credit.

Talk for 20¢/minute local calling.

Incoming standard texts are FREE Outgoing standard texts sent within Canada, to the U.S or internationally are 15¢ each.

Long Distance rate (from Canada) is an additional 40¢/minute to anywhere in Canada and the U.S.

There is an added layer of confusion. Loblaws also have a Presidents Choice Mobile Postpaid kiosk in most stores, and it has nothing to do with Presidents Choice Mobile Prepaid. Presidents Choice Mobile Postpaid is in direct competition with Presidents Choice Mobile Prepaid, and the people that staff Presidents Choice Mobile Postpaid are very unlikely to help you, and are only there is sell you an expensive plan. Be careful.

They do have a small display rack with cell phones in all 3 stores. The cell phone display rack was beside the rack of gift cards and phone cards. They had tear off tags to present to the cashier to get phones, but no sign of having SIM cards there. The display of cell phones was in serious disarray at all 3 stores -- as if it had been dumped there and never looked at since.

I cancelled my plan with them now though, even though they advised me not to (I'd been with them 2+ years, so had unlimited mobile web for $5/mo). I'll be with another service provider until they patch up their data services and then will change back if their offering is better than what I currently have.

I asked customer support if they had any intentions to add data and the rep told me he didn't know. *shrugs* We'll see.

Right now, getting unlimited messaging (+ pic + vid) and 250 mb data for $20 / month (it's unlimited for 2 months tho) on a prepaid provider, so I'm paying exactly the same as I was with PC mobile. Had unl't'd text ($10), pic + vid ($5), and web ($5). So... Idk. It's a decent trade off I think.

I could use the browsing on a Bell Nokia 2730 no problem. Was talking to Bell tech support, and they were babbling about the the $7 unlimited browsing not working on smartphones, which in reality is over 99% of the HSDPA phones out there! I know Loblaws is not amused, so hopefully their muscle can get things straightened out.

I was told there is going to be something interesting with Presidents Choice mobile in February. Hopefully something good!

A friend called President Choice mobile, to be told their unlimited browsing doesn't work yet under HSPA but that it is coming soon.

In my case, i'd get actual reception in my house with President's Choice (Bell) vs nothing right now with Petro Canada (Rogers)

Why did President's Choice and Petro Canada managed to use the same acronym so i can't use PC for either when i am comparing them ?

My phone is unlocked, unbranded and Quad Band. It runs on either WCDMA or GSM networks. I have successfully used sim cards from U.K. T-mobile, India Vodophone and am currently using my Rogers sim card. Works like a charm when I am using WiFi. I haven't switched to any paygo plan yet but my 3 year Rogers contract expires in Feb11. After posting my last entry I did some surfing and found out that my Desire is model A8181 and not the North American version A8183. I think this means that I am unable to web brows and possibly make/receive call in NA on WCDMA networks but I should be able to use the full functionality of my Desire on and GSM (like SO) networks.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I assume your Telus phone is unlocked, right? If it is, your phone is not the problem. I got the Presidents Choice mobile CSR to input a dummy IMEI phone code, and it would still not register.

Just for kicks I went on the the Telus (which sells the Desire) website and put in my IMEI number for a compatibility check for their sim cards and the result was "Your device will not work on our network.". Can anyone tell me why this is? Thanks.

I'm new to this cellphone stuff and just want to make sure I understand this. Does this mean you can purchase the SIM card from PCMobile (without the phone) and stick it into the phone you bought from 7Eleven/Speakout and it will work?

As iamdrumming said, Speakout phones are incompatible with Presidents Choice mobile SIMs for multiple reasons. Besides being locked, Speakout phones are 2G only phones. Presidents Choice mobile SIMs use the Bell/Telus network, which do not support 2G. The Rogers network, of which Speakout uses, has and supports both a 2G and 3G network.

To get a Presidents Choice mobile SIM to work, you would need an unlocked 3G phone with support for the 850 mhz and 1900 mhz frequency. 3G phones are sometimes also called UMTS, HSPA, or HSDPA phones. Almost all 3G phones are also 2G compatible, so they can work with Speakout SIMs as well.

An unlocked 3G phone that uses the 850 mhz and 1900 mhz frequency band is compatible with every SIM carrier in Canada except Wind Mobile and Mobilcity, which use a different frequency band.

I should add that Presidents Choice mobile sells prepaid phones also, like Speakout. And like Speakout, their phone selection is also not stellar, so it is nice to have the option in just buying the SIM and get the unlocked phone you want instead.

bridonca said:

Kudos for Presidents Choice mobile selling SIMs separately now, something Speakout should emulate.

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I'm new to this cellphone stuff and just want to make sure I understand this. Does this mean you can purchase the SIM card from PCMobile (without the phone) and stick it into the phone you bought from 7Eleven/Speakout and it will work?

No, SpeakOut phones are locked, plus the PC Mobile network runs on a different frequency than SpeakOut.

Kudos for Presidents Choice mobile selling SIMs separately now, something Speakout should emulate.

I'm new to this cellphone stuff and just want to make sure I understand this. Does this mean you can purchase the SIM card from PCMobile (without the phone) and stick it into the phone you bought from 7Eleven/Speakout and it will work?

I noticed the confusion with the flex plan also, I had to do a double take, but on the 20 cent a minute plan, it also sells data for $7 a month. When I was talking to a Presidents Choice mobile CSR, he was telling me that data was $10, so it would not be a shock to me if I saw an increase when the website gets it's update.

with Presidents Choice mobile, a year of data would cost me $84, so with $6 of 911 fees, I would still have $10 left to spend on phone calls for the year! /blockquote>

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OK but in order to get that, don't you have to subscribe to their FlexPlan which is $25 per month?

BTW I can't find the $100 top up card that's good for 365 days anywhere on their website-----where is this on their website and/or how do you know this?

I was also a former Presidents Choice mobile customer, and the 2 month expiry on their cards was a big turn off. Their stinky CDMA phone lineup were no help either. After my Nokia died, it was time to move on.

As of late, Presidents Choice mobile look to be working on fixing these problems. I always liked the Bell network, it is stronger here in Atlantic Canada, than Rogers. As stated by others, Rogers seems to be the better network in Upper Canada. That is probably the most important criteria.

I agree that SpeakOut should consider just sim cards, it would help those people who already have an unlocked phone.