Cell Phone Service along Alaska Highway

[weasel4]

It appears Cell service may be available along the highway by next year.

News Release

[Veebyes]

Being a ham radio operator I have access to the Yukons very good coverage repeater system. Through that I can access the IRLP system, essentially the same as skype as it is VOIP, to contact anywhere without the need of CG WIFI.

It is still magic to be miles away from civilization, where there is no cellphone coverage, & have some mountaintop antenna hear you & relay your voice from repeater to repeater to a computer somewhere then on to a place thousands of miles away to another computer which sends it to an antenna which broadcasts it to somebody walking around with a little handheld radio.

We have had this system long before there was skype just like we were making phone calls from our cars many years before there was the first cellphone.

Ham radio & its repeater systems really come into their own where there is no cell service. You may not be able to contact who you want directly but you can get somebody who can.

[2oldman]

You can turn off your phones anywhere you feel like it.

[jnharley]

We kept our cell and MIFI devices off while in Canada. We notified our friends and family just before we turned them off and asked them to send emails which we would check when wifi was available. Turned them back on in Alaska and found good to great Verizon service everywhere we went in Alaska. We even had great Verizon 4G service in Denali. Many parts of the Yukon do not even have electrical power let alone cell service.

[joe_b_]

One of the real nice things about cell phones, while traveling, is that they can become, one directional devices. Especially while we are in Canada, due to the roaming and LD charges, we incur while using our AT&T phones over their roaming partner company, Rogers communications. If I need to use the phone and feel it is worth the cost, I true it on, use it and then turn it off. Also keep all data roaming turned off, while out of the US and anything else on the phone that is using data/time, without checking with me first. Guess that is what makes it a smart phone. LOL

WiFi is just not that hard to find and use in the north country. Our daughters know we check emails every couple of days, and if they need a call, they send an email and we will find a pay phone, use a prepaid card and call them. The few remaining consulting clients I have, also understand to send me an email, if I don't get back to a text message in a couple of hours to them. I can't remember having to go over 48 hours between being able to find a good internet connection. The Canadian government is to be commended, for being a leader, in putting in the needed infrastructure, to allow even the smallest of communities to have good communications through the Internet.

A lot of it is just what we get used to having at our disposal. While I made 9 round trips over the Alaska Hwy by RV before I owned my first cell phone, I would sure miss not having one these days. think I would develop with drawl symptoms if my phone wasn't close. I find it is as good as hold a TV remote, at times. LOL

Like others have said, the cell phones and other electronic gadgets have sure changed our lives in the last decade. The other night I had been working in my home office and walked into the living room where my wife, oldest daughter and her two sons were watching a Christmas movie. All 4 of them were on their iPads, doing the multitasking bit. Tablets and TV, just struck me, that it is what my grandsons, 10 and 11, consider to be normal. They have never known anything else as most of us geezers have lived through. While I miss the verbal conversations, it is nothing that any of us are going to be able to change in our society, like it or not.

[Johnny_G1]

We can only be thankful for no phones or cell when we go on a trip to Alaska and the Yukon, who in the hell needs them, just to have the peace and quiet for a couple months and to get away from all those telemarketer's ect, only wish it was that way at home only use it when you really need to, but I quess that's the way the world is today, watch all the kids walking by the house, everybody on a bloody cell, no thanks.

[Chiefelectusn]

I'm with Veebyes and Yeti plus, I got along for many years without a cell phone and the world will not end if I am out of contact for a few days.
It is a convienience to have it but do I really need it all the time, I think not.
I am going to Alaska to see the beauty, the wildlife, meet the Alaskans not to answer the phone.
If there is an emergency back home they can call the local authorities my schedule although not airtight makes me not hard to find.
When diving in the south pacific no one had a phone and we made it!

[Yeti_plus]

I'm with Veebyes. I don't like my cell phone and didn't miss it when we were camping in October. NO cell service on either phone in the Provincial Park we were in for 3 days, and that is in Ontario. It is a work phone so that made it even better.I was on vacation so somebody else can figure out what is wrong!
We will be heading to Northwest Territories,Yukon Territory and Alaska in 2016, and will have bought a phone of our own by then so it will be nice for the peace of mind the stupid things impart.
Colliehauler:
Canadian cell providers have pay as you go plans, but nothing as inexpensive as Tracphone and Straight talk.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Virgin in Canada piggybacks on the Bell network. Bell has a reciprocal agreement with Telus. Virgin does sell prepaid cell phones that might possible be used as a hotspot.

http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/phones/phones-summary.html?itcid=NAV:71&filter=HC00050-1

[colliehauler]

Does Canada have something like a Trac-Phone that would work with the system?

[2gypsies1]

Keep in mind that you'll still need an appropriate telephone plan ($$$$) to use those towers. They'll be in Canada and the Yukon. That's an extra.

Veebyes...we're with your thinking.

[Veebyes]

Mr-MrsPete wrote:
Hey Vebyes some of us still have jobs to do while we are relaxing. Just because you don't doesn't make it wrong for eveyone else. Just saying.

No problem with the really NEED to use the cellphone use. Got my first cellphone in 1989 for my boat tour business. Just me, the boat & the phone. No office. Nobody else. The phone was a very handy tool. Customers wanted answers right away. They did not want to talk to an answering machine that I would not get back to till hours later.

It is the addicted people I am poking fun at. The ones who will not go where there is no service. The people who contantly have them in their hands, looking at the phone every 30 seconds as they walk. The people who can't put the phone away when they are in a restaurant or movie. The ones who think that a moving vehicle is a conference center. The ones who cannot bear to be disconnected from the world, as if the world needs them to be connected. It doesn't.

We have been to Alaska 3 times. We use Walmarts Straight Talk & Tracphone. No service in Canada for either one. We never race through Canada to get to Alaska. Our preference is to use provincial park CGs. No WIFI. We keep in touch using Skype or Email wherever we can find WIFI. That can be the occasional commercial CG or a library. Our itinerary is updated as often as possible so if there is an emergency the police can be given a real good idea of where to find us.

Three to four weeks going through Canada or Alaska without cellphone service...no problem. It is nice being disconnected from the world for a spell.

[joe_b_]

This is a copy of a post I put up back in 2010. With the fiber optic cable in place the installation of cell towers should go quickly. Only time will tell if it is economically feasible to do. Virtually all the villages in Alaska now have cell service, tied into the state owned TV satellite system that used be known as RATNet. Rural Alaska Tellivison network. It has created a lot of positive situations and some negative ones, especially in the areas of fish and game management. I just hope that soon, it will get reasonable in cost to use a US cell phone in Canada and visa versa for Canadians traveling in the US.
Start of old post:

As mentioned above, cell service is very limited to non-existent along many miles of the Alaska Hwy. However the good news is that Northwestel, a Canadian communications company has in the last few years laid a fiber optic cable along side the Alaska Hwy for about 2,000km, running from the Yukon, to northeastern BC and on into Alberta. This allows for very good Internet service and WiFi in many places. Almost every town or village in Canada, regardless of size will have Internet services, normally found at the local library, town haul, school, etc. Just pulling up to the local library and most of the time you will find a WiFi hot spot, free to use.
So it shouldn't be too long before someone or the Canadian government puts up more cell towers along the Alaska Hwy and uses the fiber optic line for transmissions. Makes it possible for the small remote businesses, to have ATMs, credit card machines, credit card fuel pumps, etc. (the fiber cable was accidentally cut by a drilling contractor the other day and messed up the northern Internet services for users.
We tend to turn our cell phones off in Canada and use prepaid phone cards available at Sams, Cosco, Wal Mart, Target, Canadian Tire, etc. Still many more pay phones available in Canada than in the US.
We use the Intenet for communications with family and any business I need to take care of while traveling. Do my bill paying and other banking needs at certain places, Whitehorse, Valdez, and Fairbanks at systems that use a password. Works great and we have been doing it for years. Our daughters, grown ones now, know that I tend to check my emails every day or two if anything comes up.

joe b.
Stuart Florida
Formerly of Colorado and Alaska
2011 Chevy 3500 DRW Dmax CC 4X4- Rockwood 8281 SS 5th Whl & 2008 Lance 845 TC
www.pajbcooper.com web site
Alaska-Colorado and other Trips posted
"Without challenge, adventure is impossible".

[obgraham]

Mr-MrsPete wrote:
Hey Vebyes some of us still have jobs to do while we are relaxing.

Some folks even managed to work prior to the cellphonemania.

[Mr-MrsPete]

Hey Vebyes some of us still have jobs to do while we are relaxing. Just because you don't doesn't make it wrong for eveyone else. Just saying.