Cell Phones For OTR Drivers

People are asking me what cell phones and cell phone providers are the best value for Long Haul Truckers in Canada. Well its a very subjective issue and im sure everyone will have their own ideas. This is what i found to be the best value.........................

I carry 2 cell phones, i have a Sanyo 7000 on a Bell contract for use in Canada & 10-4 (more about that later). And i have a Nokia phone which is a Net-10 Pay-As-You-Go which i use in the States. It would be nice to do it all on the one handset but unfortunately this is the cheapest way to go.

Sanyo 7000 Bell Contract

This is my main phone, i get 400 free minutes per month which i use in Canada and obviously round town, this is also the cell phone i recieve the majority of my calls on. I chose the Sanyo because it has a very special feature called 10-4.

I pay an extra $15 each month and the handset has a PTT (Push To Talk) on the side which means it can be used as a walkie talkie, its a strange system that seems to ride piggyback on your service providers carrier wave and gives free calls to other 10-4 handsets anywhere in North America (thats Canada and USA) as long as there is a signal. I have one and so does Jan so we can chat as long as we want no matter where we are as long as we can get that signal.

10-4 does have some disadvantages, you have to keep pressing the button everytime you speak and signal does vary from state to state, Montana and North Dakota for example have practically no coverage.

The main advantage though is that once you pay the $15 monthly charge the calls are free, this thing has saved us hundreds of dollars over the time we have been here.

The one thing that really bumps your cell phone bill up is international calls, unfortunately an OTR spends most of his/her time south of the border, so..........................................

The NET-10 PAYG

You buy this little gem in Wal-Mart and thats where you get the top-up cards from although now i have noticed you can get them in Pilot truckstops too.

I bought my Nokia handset for $30 int the Walmart in Twin Falls (just passed the Flying J) and i also bought a $30 topup card. I charged the battery, registered the phone and topped it up which gave me 300 USA minutes, when i registered it i also got another 300 minutes bonus minutes so by my reckoning that cancelled out the price of the handset.

I use this phone to phone brokers in Canada for 15c per minute and i can also call UK landlines for 15c per minute. Now how about that for value.................................

There are other handsets and other companies but those were my two choices. There are links to both companies in the side-bar. If you have any other ideas or opinions please feel free to comment.