topic Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario in Lucky Mobile Community

Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

daemon — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:14:31 GMT

Has anyone ever come across an issue where their cell service doesn't work when traveling from one province to another? I live in Ontario and I travelled to Winnipeg, Manitoba just the other day. Once I was in Winnipeg I was unable to send or received phone calls or check my voicemail. My data worked fine though. It was only when I returned home to Ontario that my cell service and access to my voicemail worked as it should. Lucky's Live customer service through the app reported no outages where I was in Winnipeg when I chatted with them. They had no idea what would cause this issue or how to fix it but did offer a few suggestions which I tried. I tried putting my phone in airplane mode for 1 min and then disabling airplane mode. I tried restarting my phone. I tried turning off my phone and then turning it back on. The one thing I wasn't able to do at the time when I was in Winnipeg was turn off my phone, remove the SIM card and reinsert the SIM card. I did this when I got home though. Anyone have any ideas what could cause this?

Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

LuckyMobileAntonie — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:41:43 GMT

Hey there @daemon ,

Welcome to the community and thanks for your post.

It is very likely that you encountered an issue related to the discontinuation of 3G/HSPA networks in Manitoba.

Many older plans or devices still rely on the 3G network for voice calls. This is why your data (which uses the LTE network) worked perfectly fine, but you couldn't make calls or access voicemail (which often defaults to the 3G network for voice transit).

If your phone is not specifically configured to use VoLTE (Voice over LTE), it will attempt to "drop down" to a 3G signal to complete a phone call. Since the 3G network in Winnipeg has been decommissioned, there was no signal for your phone to switch to, causing the call to fail immediately.

How to prevent this next time:

Since your service returned to normal in Ontario, your phone and SIM are fine—the issue was most likely regional network compatibility. To maximize the chances of your service working on your next trip:

Enable VoLTE: Check your phone settings (usually under Connections > Mobile Networks or Cellular Data Options) and ensure VoLTE is toggled ON. This allows your voice calls to travel over the same 4G LTE network your data uses.
Set Network to Automatic: Ensure your "Network Selection" is set to Automatic so your phone can properly handshake with available towers in a new province.
Check Plan Compatibility: Some older plans may need a Service Pass or a plan update to fully support VoLTE features in 3G-decommissioned zones.

Give those a try and let the community know if you have more questions.

Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

daemon — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:54:36 GMT

That makes total sense about my issue being related to the 3G network being discontinued. I never thought about that. I'm not tech savvy when it comes to cell phones but just to confirm this is the setting I need to change my phone too? My phone is a Motorola Edge+ 2023 and while it supports VoLTE there's no actual setting for it.

How can I check the compatibility of my current plan? The Lucky app doesn't tell me much of anything.

Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

LuckyMobileKris — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:22:05 GMT

Good morning, @daemon. Thanks for sharing these screenshots and additional details.

It sounds like you do indeed have an older plan that is regrettably incompatible with VoLTE and will need to upgrade your plan for future usage in cases such as yours where you're going to areas where 3G networks have been decommissioned.

You can take a look at newer plan options available to you by logging onto your Lucky Mobile My Account profile and going to Manage My Plan

Let us know if you have any further questions. Best wishes. 🙂

— Kris

Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

daemon — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:41:16 GMT

My current plan has 4.5GBs of total data for $25 and the cheapest plan available to me has 2GBs of total data for $30. Why would I want to pay more for less data? I've been a Lucky Mobile customer since 2022 so unless Lucky gives me some sort of compromise like the current 25GB plan for $25 deal I'm going to switch to another service provider.

Furthermore I spoke with a Lucky Customer Care Agent the other day and they said buying a new SIM card will fix my issue. So which is it? Do I need a new plan or a new SIM card? I'm not going to spend $10 on a new SIM card if it doesn't fix my issue.

Re: Lost cellular service when travelling to Winnipeg, MB but worked again when returning to Ontario

LuckyMobileKris — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:46:56 GMT

Thanks for getting back to us, @daemon.

We'd be happy to take a closer look into your plan and confirm. We'll be reaching out in a private message momentarily. Please check your Messages within your profile avatar in the top right corner.

Unsure how to check or send a private message? See How to send a private message

— Kris