Digital Phone Not

You might think that if you have an Island Tel digital phone on PEI, you also have an Island Tel digital phone in Ontario. This is, alas, not the case for the Bell Canada digital network uses a different frequency than the Aliant network, and so you’re stuck with analog service in Ontario unless you have something called a “tri-mode” phone.

The Big Impact of this is that a phone that you might be used to charging once every 3 or 4 days on PEI has to be charged every 8 hours or so when you’re in Ontario because the analog network requires more juice to connect to.

This means that a long work day followed by a night out will outlast your phone.

I’m fairly certain that Island Tel mentions this when you first sign up for digital service, but it bears repeating, esp. because the battery drain is so dramatic.

Comments

Andrew Chisholm's picture
Andrew Chisholm on April 5, 2002 - 14:12 Permalink

One would think North American cell phone providers should adapt a standard. I see no use in a cell phone for all them reasons.