Cañada - U.S. plan

[JRDS]

I purchased the Canada - U.S. plans for our travels for our 2 phones and they are TERRIBLE unless you are in a city. They don’t work at all so far in most of the areas that we have been in. (North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania).  Iphone 13mini & IPhone SE   
Have had to rely on wifi & the kindness of strangers who have looked up things for us on their phones (hotels etc).

why is this product so poor??

[JRDS]

On my iPhone 13 I set Voice & Data to LTE and it seems to work better now. Thanks!

[JRDS]

aha!! On our iPhones, I set set Voice & Data to LTE under Cellular Data Options and I think that’s it!! Thanks!

[DennyCrane · Accepted solution]

In general the roaming coverage is great. VoLTE is a common issue, but if you're not even getting a solid data connection that isn't your issue. Make sure to set your Preferred Network to 4G/LTE vs 5G, because 5G AT&T won't work most of the time. If that's what your phone automatically connected to, that was probably your issue.

I've used roaming add-on's or Canada/US plans on Public Mobile for a few years now, mostly without issue. The only issue I had was after the US shut their 3G network down and PM hadn't enabled VoLTE yet. Other than that it's been rock solid. And prior to that I was with Telus (same company) and roamed in the US for 2 decades without issue. Obviously coverage will vary by location, but you shouldn't have had an issue in that many of those places. My guess is it's because of being connected to AT&T 5G.

[dust2dust]

Coverage is out of the control of Public. Setting the phone to 4G LTE should give optimum chances of connecting to either T-Mobile or AT&T. Real sms text and data should work fine.
Talk is where you need volte for best results. My experience with 2G was that in some areas it would switch down automatically but other areas I would need to switch manually. If the phone can't do this automatically in a particular area then talk will be a challenge.

[softech]

@Phil_Adelphus 

newer iOS hides the 2G option, but that does not mean it won't automatically drop to 2G, it will.  Of course in such case, you relying 100% for the phone to drop to 2G when needed, sometimes it could be slow and you will miss incoming calls

[Phil_Adelphus]

@JRDS  As hairbag1 and softech noted, because there is pretty much no 3G service in the USA any more since the carriers there turned it off, you need to have a VoLTE capable and enabled phone otherwise for voice calls you are limited to areas where T-mobile has 2G.  I have a 13 mini on PM and it is VoLTE enabled but I only know that by testing it because there is no VoLTE on/off in the settings.  It also has no 2G option in the settings, just 5G, LTE and 3G ( @hairbag1 and @softech does that mean it would not drop to 2G?).  I don't know about the SE, if it is the first generation (2016) then it pre-dates the iPhone 8 which is the oldest iPhone on PM's VoLTE compatible list.

[hairbag1]

@JRDS 

could be that volte hasn't been "turned on" by PM. Send them a message to see if it's been turned on.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

Without volte enabled, you can only talk using T-Mobile's 2G GSM. It will work close to a cell tower, but signal will quickly diminish as you move away from tower. When volte is working...that will improve things greatly.

[softech]

@JRDS 

many are using the roaming services without issues, especially now you have choices of 2 networks, maybe just a bit of extra tweaks.

Critical part to US roaming depends on T-Mobile/AT&T coverage and whether you can connect successfully onto either network.

If the phone is not connecting to T-Mobile/AT&T, change the Network Connection from Automatic to Manual and select and test both T-Mobile and AT&T and see which one you can connect.

If your issue is with data, make sure your Roaming Mobile data is enabled and you have disabled your mobile data limiter.  Also change your network mode to 4G (and don't try 5G until you can connect and works on 4G)

If your issue is with voice, make sure VoLTE is enabled on the device setting.  And if it does not work, try to change the Network to T-Mobile ONLY, and change  Preferred Network Type or Network Mode to 2G and see if the calls go through.
Also, you can download VoIP app TextNow as a workaround to make calls and text if you have Wifi or if your roaming has data component and data  is working