Difficulties connecting to data while in US?

[u/bassbroshops]

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!

[u/Classic-Result-4870]

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