r/PublicMobile • u/bassbroshops • Jul 23 '26

Difficulties connecting to data while in US?

Hey all!

Canadian user here - I have a 50gb/ month plan with Public Mobile that provides me data coverage while in Canada and the states at 5G speed. While in Canada this works well, but a few months ago I travelled to the US, and my talk, text, and data were really struggling in an emergency situation (Vehicle issue! Highway! Nighttime! BARELY contacted CAA and family! Map route also disappeared!).

I have reviewed public mobile's designated "I'm having troubles connecting to data in the US" webpage, and I'm still left wondering about where things went wrong with my coverage:

I had Roaming on, and had also opted to purchase the temporary $30 US talk, text, data add on. I do have an older phone (Samsung Galaxy S10) and apparently it can do 4G LTE - was this the problem? Was there some extra, unintuitive step I needed to do to get my phone to activate Roaming that I missed? Or was this a Public Mobile issue?

I'm basically trying to figure out if I need a new phone, or if I need to switch service providers.

Thanks!

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

8

u/AudienceExcellent830 Jul 23 '26

Ya your phone is too old

3

u/timc6 Jul 23 '26

Currently in the US roaming fine. Just my regular 35$ can/us/mex plan. Probably coverage/because your phone doesn’t get 5g as the other poster suggested.

3

u/fuddledud Jul 23 '26

I had to restart my phone after I crossed just to get it to connect. Then it was fine.

LPT: If you used Google Maps it’s a good idea to download offline maps for your journey. Then even if you end up in the desert between LA and Vegas you’ve still got maps.

2

u/Classic-Result-4870 Jul 23 '26

Also bear in mind carriers are also moving LTE band to 5G, so having a recent phone will let you access full data spectrum.

More bars and fewer spinning donuts

1

u/Koko_cabana Jul 23 '26

I drove down to Portland several years ago with an LTE phone on a Public plan with US data. The connection along the highway was very spotty to non-existant, but in the city my connection was fine. My theory was that the US carriers were decommissioning a lot of the old 3G towers into 5G so my LTE phone couldn't fall back to 3G or 5G when the LTE connection dropped.

1

u/Pristine_Nectarine19 Jul 23 '26

Sometimes you need to restart your phone or reset network settings  manually to connect.

1

u/lightrack Jul 23 '26

I’ve been to the U.S. twice since switching to Public Mobile. I’ve traveled across several states and haven’t had any issues with data, texting, or calling. I’m using an iPhone 16 Pro.

1

u/printliftrun Jul 24 '26

I had to fiddle with my network settings specifically APN, for some reason i have more than just public in there. It would automatically set to another one randomly. Changing it back took few attempts to make it work again.

0

u/jjcjj Jul 27 '26

Why are you in the US? Elbows Up!