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Looking at prepaid SIM card options in Canada it seems that the best choice by far is to get a T-Mobile prepaid plan for $50/month which includes 4GB of data and allows you to use the same tariff in Mexico, US and Canada. The detailed T&C's mention that:

Not for extended international use; you must reside in the U.S. and primary usage must occur on our U.S. network. Device must register on our U.S. network before international use. Service may be terminated or restricted for excessive roaming or misuse.

However it's not clear what "excessive use" means. Is it one month outside the US? 6 months? 1 year? If they let you roam for at least a month it would be perfectly fine as one could easily stash numerous anonymous prepaid SIM cards and swap them out once per month.

After around a month and a half of living in Canada and using my US T-Mobile roaming full-time I got this message, stating that I was outside of the fair use for data with this link. All the info is vague about when they'd cut me off. They primarily seem concerned with the volume of use, presumably especially data (as that would be obviously reduced by using wifi).

I was told by the representative before leaving the US that the plan would be terminated after a few months of full-time data roaming. So I heeded this warning and bought a Canadian plan because I didn't want to lose my plan (post-paid, 4 lines $20 each) which I find worth paying even just to use data when back in the States or elsewhere, keep my US number, and not affect the other lines (those 3 lines are used only in the US).

I've continued using my T-mobile SIM for calls and text to the US, but not data (dual SIM set up) for three weeks since getting the warning text without issue.

All that said, if you're able and willing to get a Canadian post-paid plan, and don't need much usage in the US, mine ended up being $49 CAD for unlimited text, talk and 8 GB (cheaper than the T-Mobile plan you mentioned).

I just called the T-mobile customer service. The kind lady explained that if I wanted to use the sim card for extended periods of time (months) in Canada it won't be terminated as long as I keep it active.

As a T-mobile Pay-As-You-Go customer, you would have to keep some balance on the account to use service for 30 days. Then after that, the account would continue for another 30 days as long as there are funds in it. However, you will have to activate it once in the US before you can use it in Canada.

On the other hand for a monthly plan, for the US only it's $45 and if you want to include Canada & Mexico too it's $50 for what you mentioned. The service will automatically renew at the end of 30 days provided there is enough balance in your account. And it will continue to do so as long as you are paying the $50 before the 30 days complete.

It seems that line in the TOC is to keep the corporate company on the safe side of legal matters.

My solution worked out great - the T-Mobile plan is indeed the cheapest option for getting 4+ gigabytes of data with occasional roaming in the US. Haven't received any warnings after eight months of heavy usage, so I'm pretty sure their T&C's are not enforced in practice. The only issues are:

• Roaming is officially limited to 5GB per month. So unfortunately their 10GB plan would only be half usable while you're staying in Canada. After the limit is exhausted your speed is limited to 128 kb/s which is still usable for basic messaging and navigation. However it should be noted that my 10GB plan wasn't throttled even though I've reached the 5GB limit within Canada.


• Not every Canadian has international calls/texting, but Whatsapp is widespread enough for it to be a non-issue. If you really do need a Canadian number, register a virtual one on Anveo.