Bell’s new roaming feature lets customers use their own data bucket

While Bell’s Roam Better program was launched to offer customers a valid alternative to Rogers’ popular Roam Like Home service, it never quite competed on data — until now.

The carrier is now offering customers a choice between Roam Better — which gives customers 100MB per day — and the new ‘Roam Better – with home data,’ which was launched yesterday and allows clients to use their domestic data bundle while roaming.

To gain access to their normal data buckets, however, customers will need to pay more. The new Roam Better option costs $6 per day in the U.S. and $12 per day in other international locations. Customers will be charged up to a maximum of 20 days per billing cycle — meaning it’s capped at $120 in the U.S. and $240 in other international locations.

The 100MB version costs $5 per day in the U.S. (capped at $100) and $10 per day in other international locations (capped at $200).

Both forms of Roam Better provide users unlimited talk and text. Bell says Roam Better is available to most plans, including Share plans, voice and text only plans, and Small Business plans.

To enroll in the 100MB version, customers can text ‘Roam100’ to 7626, or for the new Roam Better, they can text ‘Roam’ to 8000.

Not long ago, Bell and sub-brand Virgin Mobile expanded roaming coverage to 24 new countries, including Cuba.

Bell has clarified to MobileSyrup that, for now, Virgin will not offer this new form of roaming like its parent brand. Instead, its Roam Sweet Roam program will feature only the 100MB-per-day option.

Bell’s other major competitor, Telus, also offers a roaming program. EasyRoam lets customers use their own plan while roaming in over 100 international locations for $10 CAD per day, capped at $150 per month.

Source: Bell