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No LTE available while roaming in Canada?

I was just in Toronto, Ontario this past week and had gotten the Canada/Mexico roaming add-on with 500mins/500 texts and 1GB of data beforehand to use. I was assured by both Verizon's website (including the coverage maps) and their Global Services support team that I would be able to get LTE in the major Canadian cities. Yet the entire time I was in Toronto I was only able to get 3G/H+ at best. Didn't matter if I was on Rogers, Bell or Telus. It's not world-ending by any means, but it is disconcerning when you pay for something you expect to get only to be disappointed. For the same price I could've used a prepaid SIM on Koodo (Telus MVNO) and gotten 1GB of LTE data. I normally visit Vancouver, British Columbia where I never get LTE service either, but where I know LTE service exists. These aren't rural areas I'm visiting, they're Canada's largest cities.

I tried putting my SIM in a different phone, but it didn't work either. I have a Nexus 6 from Motorola and an unlocked Sprint iPhone 5s that I tried to use. Could that be it? They've never have any problems with VZW in the US, so what gives? And how come VZW's customer service teams have next to zero knowledge regarding this matter?

Comments

NiteiKnight

So update: I called tech support who fixed some weird provisions on my account and said I should be good to go. Last weekend I went up to Vancouver and tested the roaming service to see if Verizon actually fixed the issue. After crossing the border, it took a manual search on my Nexus to pick up a Canadian carrier. To which I was still only able to access 3G/H+. I called up Global Services tech support and after waiting for a few minutes while they looked into my issue, they (who apparently possess coverage maps that I cannot seem to find anywhere online) informed me that Vancouver (and Toronto while I was asking) did not have LTE turned on in many areas, including downtown where I was. You can imagine my dumbfounded look as they told me this while I was staring at my Koodo iPhone which had full bars of LTE. In the middle of downtown Vancouver. But they did say that if I went out to North Van or Richmond, I could find LTE.

So to recap: according to Verizon Global Services, most of Canada doesn't have LTE enabled. Even though both Verizon's public-facing coverage maps, domestic tech support, and the coverage maps of Rogers, Bell and Telus say otherwise, I would not be able to get LTE in most of the Canadian cities because they didn't have it yet.

I feel like I would be more upset over being lied to and gypped by Verizon for this, but I get a fat discount on their services so it's not a big loss. What I'm more upset over is how there doesn't seem to be a way to address this where it'll get fixed. Customer support is essentially clueless, and tech support seems unwilling to do anything helpful. It's maddening that they advertise and sing promises of international LTE roaming, then fail to deliver whilst shifting blame (wrongly). Guess I'm sticking with using Koodo while visiting Canada for the foreseeable future, unless I switch to T-Mobile or something.

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