There are few feelings worse than returning home from an exhilarating, inspiring, and rejuvenating vacation only to find your cell phone bill filled with roaming charges. While the CRTC has tried to force the telecom industry to be more transparent with roaming costs that hasn’t stopped costs from rising.
Fido is one of the few carriers that didn’t raise its roaming prices. Fido Roam is the carrier’s daily roaming plan, which allows customers to pay a flat fee to access their normal cell phone plan while out of the country.
In this guide, we break down Fido Roam’s rates, how to avoid high roaming charges, and the best cell phone plans that provide access to the service.
What is Fido Roam?
Fido Roam is Fido’s roaming service, which allows you to use your Fido plan while traveling outside Canada. Travelers to the US are charged $12/day while those traveling elsewhere pay $15/day, prices that are identical to Fido’s parent company Rogers’ Roam Like Home rates.
Credit: Fido
Those are flat rates per day, but Fido doesn’t define a “day” as 24 hours: Customers pay for Fido Roam per calendar day. That means if you begin using your data at 1 p.m. you’ll have paid for 11 hours of access to your Fido plan. If you use your data after midnight, you’ll incur another day’s charge.
If you’re using Fido Roam on a longer trip, there’s good news: Fido will stop charging you after 20 days (a ceiling of $240 for US and $300 for international) but will allow you to continue accessing your minutes, texting, and data for the remainder of the month.
How to activate Fido Roam
It’s a simple process to activate Fido Roam when you’re traveling. Here’s how to make it happen:
- Check to see that your destination is eligible on Fido’s website. Fido Roam covers over 185 destinations, but it can’t hurt to double-check to ensure you’ll have service on your trip.
- Turn on data roaming in your phone’s settings. On an iPhone, go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options, then switch Data Roaming on. On an Android, go to Settings > Mobile Networks, then switch on Data Roaming.
- You can begin using your phone. Your Fido Roam charges will appear on your next bill.
Fido plans with Fido Roam
Fido Roam is automatically enabled on all Fido postpaid plans except for their Basic plans. Fido Roam is not available for prepaid plans.
If you want a Fido plan that has access to Fido Roam, we recommend the Data, Talk & Text Plan with 50GB, which we named among the best Fido cell phone plans. The plan offers unlimited talk and text and almost 10 times more 4G LTE data than the average Canadian uses in a month.
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Fido
$34 Data, Talk & Text Plan with 60GB
$34/mth
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Avoid Fido roaming charges
Roaming can be expensive, especially if you’re traveling for an extended period of time. There is a way to keep your costs low, though, assuming you’re strategic. If you want to avoid the charges that come with Fido Roam, follow these tips.
Turn off Fido Roam
Unfortunately, Fido doesn’t make it easy to avoid Fido Roam. The service is triggered anytime you use your phone while roaming unless you explicitly opt out of the service before traveling. In order to turn off Fido Roam, you need to contact Fido customer service and tell them that you want to opt out of the service.
Opting out of Fido Roam doesn’t mean you’ll be able to roam for free, though. If you enable data roaming and use your phone while outside Canada, you’ll be charged the pay per use rates.
Fido roaming pay per use rates
| Call | Text | Data | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US | $1.45/min | $0.75/text | $12.00/50MB |
| All other countries | $3.00/min | $0.75/text | $15.00/10MB |
Use Wi-Fi
As you probably noticed, Fido’s pay per use rates aren’t much more cost effective than the daily rate that comes with Fido Roam. But if you save your phone use for when you’re on free Wi-Fi (at a hotel, hostel, or cafe) then you can avoid the high charges that come with roaming.
We recommend putting your phone in Airplane Mode (found in Settings) so you won’t be tempted to use data while you’re outside Wi-Fi. While you’re at it, you should also enable Wi-Fi Calling (Settings > Cellular > Wi-Fi Calling) so that any phone calls you make or take while on Wi-Fi will use Wi-Fi rather than your Fido plan.
Want to be extra cautious? You can turn off data roaming so you won’t be able to use the phone except while on Wi-Fi. On an iPhone, go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > then switch off Data Roaming. On an Android, go to Settings > Connections > Mobile networks > then switch off Data roaming.
Buy an international SIM
If you want to use your phone outside of Wi-Fi but don’t want to pay Fido’s roaming charges, you can purchase a local SIM or eSIM and activate a prepaid plan. Doing so will allow you the freedom of using your phone as you explore your destination without racking up exorbitant roaming charges.
If you’re looking for the best options while visiting our southern neighbor, check out our U.S. Roaming Guide for Canadian Travelers and Snowbirds.
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