The last time I tried to use my Rogers Wireless “Pay As You Go” pre-paid mobile SIM on my phone here in the USA, it didn’t work: any attempt to use it resulted in a “No Service” message, even if the phone found a local GSM network to connect to.

This wasn’t a surprise, as the Rogers website made it clear that the pre-paid plan didn’t support US roaming.

Imagine my surprise today, then, when I noticed I had a Cingular signal here at Yankee in New Hampshire, made a call back home to Charlottetown and the call went through.

I talked to Catherine for 31 seconds and then checked my account balance on the Rogers website to see what the charge was: it cost me $4.98. I assumed this was the per-minute charge, as the pre-paid charges in Canada are traditionally billed to the nearest minute.

Turns out that this is a new pre-paid feature of Rogers Pay As You Go offering, something they’re promoting on the front page of their wireless site with a big banner ad. Here’s the rates page for US roaming; they quote $2.49/minute, which suggests they mis-billed me for a two-minute call. That’s the rate for making or receiving calls, both local and long distance.

I called Rogers customer service number (using my own hint to talk to a real person) and found out that the billing actually starts when the phone starts ringing. Turns out that my call was actually a 62 second — aka “two minute” in mobile phone math — call and hence that’s what I was billed for.