Monday, February 27, 2017

Sugar Mobile and VoLte

I recently switched my phone service provider from Freedom Mobile in Canada to Sugar Mobile. Who is Sugar Mobile? Sugar Mobile uses wifi and LTE for calling. It's a basic service that gives you phone and text capabilities on your cell phone. Rather then use your standard phone and text app Sugar Mobile uses there own calling app to call and text. When on WiFi it uses the Wifi service and when not in WiFi range then it switches to data.

Their plans are simple, if you use WiFi only cost is 19$ every 2 months, if you want a sim card and 40 mg of data to enable calling while away from WiFi cost goes to 19$ every month. Not bad for a simple plan, 400 mg data, unlimited North America call and text.  If you require more data the charge is 19$ per 400 mg. For an additional 19$ you can add call forwarding and voicemail with the option to email you the voicemail. Voicemail/forwarding charge is a one time charge..

      Pro's 

  • Good price
  • Works anywhere in the world with a wifi or data connection
  • Decent call quality (dependent on network)
  • Easy to use interface
  • Phone number porting available - no cost
      Con's
  • MMS is currently not supported
  • Having to use an app to text and call
  • Cost of data can be expensive if heavy user
  • Limited support
I've been using this plan app for 2 months and here are a few things that I've found:
  • Call quality is good for a 3rd party app, I've used Nextplus and Magicjack in the past and so far Sugar Mobile seems to have a solid product.
  • Data can be costly, so I use the app a tablet only plan with my Nexus 6P.
  • As with most calling apps I find that the ring notification can be missed easily if phone is on silent or vibrate only.
So why use Sugar Mobile or any other calling app? If you like to travel and don't want to pay heavy roaming charges this is the way to go. Your app will work anywhere in the world. All you do is land, buy a sim card with data and your Canadian Phone number works with all it's features. You can also forward this number to a US number once you've paid the 19$ if you travel between Canada/US and need a Canadian number Sugar Mobile allows you to do this. That's what I have done for the last 2 months during which time I used Project Fi and Freedom Pop as my service providers.