SpeakOut Canada now offers SIMs and online airtime purchase
 

Until a few days ago it wasn't possible to buy a SpeakOut SIM without also buying a phone and airtime, at least not from a 7-Eleven store. You can now buy SIMs for SpeakOut at 7-11 stores for $10. Add $25 for airtime and you have phone service in Canada on the Rogers network using an unlocked 850/1900 GSM handset.

You can now also purchase airtime online to Top Up Your Account. You need to have an existing SIM (and thus phone number) as well as pay by credit card.

Currently there's no way to buy the SIMs online other than via eBay or other third parties.

For more information: SpeakOut? 7-Eleven® Canada | Prepaid Mobile Phone Service and The Unofficial 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada Consumer Page

Interesting. No 7-Elevens in Quebec and the East? 25 cent local calls in Canada. 45 cent long distance in Canada and to USA.

This seems like a good offer for some short term and intermittent visitors. They say coverage to 94% of Canadians. A lot of empty Canada though.

Well, land-wise Canada's the largest country in North America by land mass and third largest in the world.

Once you have a SIM there's no longer any need for a 7-11 to add airtime. Now you can get a friend to buy a SIM at any Canadian 7-11 store for $10 then mail it to you.

Also when you get the SIM you can call SpeakOut to ask them to change your phone number to a local exchange so that most of your calls will be local. There's no charge for that.

My wife and I both use it as our primary cell phone. (We're not heavy users so a $25 refill lasts a year.)

As for coverage they're a Rogers MVNO so the phone works in almost all of the populated parts of Canada. (One exception is outside the main cities/towns in Newfoundland where Bell has much better coverage.)

Realize too that something like 90% of Canadians live within 200km of the US border. So while the country is large, the populated/travelled part is relatively small.

An update seven years later: The Speakout offer is more or less unchanged, but it is possible to top up using a foreign credit card - at least if your bank makes you go through an additional confirmation step like approving the transaction in an app. I put down my hotel as my address but was able to top up 25 dollars with a German card, thus prolonging validity by 365 days. Another, perhaps safer, option, is to buy a top-up when you leave Canada. The codes are themselves valid for one year, so you can save it till you need it. Still no roaming outside Canada, though, so you will need to set up an online account before you go (or call customer service).