Live in U.S. - going to Canada - will Google Maps work?

[lokiawse654]

I live in the U.S. and I'm going to Canada for the weekend. I have the Droid w/ unlimited data plan. Will the maps/navigation app that comes w/ the phone work in Canada or do I need to purchase/activate an option? TIA.

 

[SinCitySRT4]

i think the maps will work but i believe the navigation is US only.

 

[mhermann596]

........ Repeat Post Below .........

 

[mhermann596]

It works in Canada. I was just in Montreal. Unless you have Verizons international data roaming package you are gonna pay through the nose to use the map though.

 

[deputc26]

I'm in Canada now, maps works, nav doesn't.

 

[jetnc]

Nav works, if you have the international data plan, I've used it. And, the nice thing is that you can turn on the international plan the day you are leaving to go to Canada, and then turn it back off the day you leave via the Verizon page. Or you can call them and do it.

 

[lokiawse654]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I found everything that everyone replied was exactly true. Nav doesn't but maps do. However, maps still offers a location icon over-top of the map so you have at least a pseudo nav option. Also, for some reason (and I'm only stating this for future thread readers) I lost GPS services right when I crossed the boarder for about 1 hour. I called verizon and they didn't know why I was experiencing that. I enabled every GPS option there was on my phone, I even stopped at a local hot-spot to try to refresh maps.....nothing. For some reason out of the blue it started working again. Kind of weird and don't know why. Anyways, thanks to all.

 

[Vulcan1600]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I found everything that everyone replied was exactly true. Nav doesn't but maps do. However, maps still offers a location icon over-top of the map so you have at least a pseudo nav option. Also, for some reason (and I'm only stating this for future thread readers) I lost GPS services right when I crossed the boarder for about 1 hour. I called verizon and they didn't know why I was experiencing that. I enabled every GPS option there was on my phone, I even stopped at a local hot-spot to try to refresh maps.....nothing. For some reason out of the blue it started working again. Kind of weird and don't know why. Anyways, thanks to all.

Glad everything worked out for you. Have you received your VZW bill to see how much you paid for data? I'm afraid you might be getting a good sized data bill unless you went with an international data package while in Canada.

 

[kodiak799]

VZW will charge you $0.002 per kb when roaming on data. It's just over $2 per meg of data downloaded, I think. A meg is, perhaps unsurprisingly, nothing. It's probably cheaper to call someone at 69 cents a minute and ask directions!

 

[GoHuskies]

Nav works, if you have the international data plan, I've used it. And, the nice thing is that you can turn on the international plan the day you are leaving to go to Canada, and then turn it back off the day you leave via the Verizon page. Or you can call them and do it.

That is true, however, since there isn't an unlimited data plan for Canada, your data will be prorated over the time you had the plan. For example: I'm paying $30 for 75MB in Canada. Since that's is the monthly rate, if I turn it on Friday and turn it off Sunday, I will get prorated for 7.5MB, or 10% of the month (3/30). If I use 50MB over that time, I will only pay $3 for the prorated data plan, but then I'll pay $0.75 / MB overage, or $50. So it would be cheaper to just pay for the whole month and avoid overages (esp. since I typically use over 1 GB per month when on my unlimited US plan). You can also check your usage at the end of your trip and do the math to determine which costs less.

Also: if you're already into the billing cycle during which you'll be travelling, as I was, the Verizon rep can backdate your international plan to the beginning of the month to give you the full 75MB (or whatever plan you get).

 

[GoHuskies]

Sorry I was wrong--it's not $0.75 / MB overage--it's closer to $2 with the roaming charges tacked on. So before you try to prorate, check your usage and do the math.