GPS tracker to send SMS messages

Hi there,
I'm a newbie to this forum, but have a couple of Arduino projects under my belt. Still learning the ropes.

My group and I are trying to put together a GPS tracking unit that sends SMS messages to a phone as it moves. This is for school.

I'm working with an Arduino Mega, but the price tag on the other component parts and a time crunch element made me want to run this by a community that may have experience with similar projects.

The (Canadian) shopping list:

Adafruit FONA 808 Shield - Mini Cellular GSM + GPS for Arduino
GSM/Cellular Quad-Band Antenna - 3dBi uFL
Passive GPS Antenna uFL - 15mm x 15mm 1 dBi gain

I realize GSM is going to die at the end of this year, but I figured this was the most accessible starting point for someone relatively new to programming and hardware.

My main concern is the Adafruit unit being able to communicate with Canadian cell providers. There are plenty of reasonably cheap sims such as the 7-11 Speak Out prepaid options. The unit says it has Quad-band 850/900/1800/1900MHz, so can connect onto any global GSM network with any 2G SIM, which Canada still has.

How do I ensure I'll be able to send messages? Am I looking for something particular in a SIM, beyond having it be 2G? Have any of you tried one of these?

Thanks,
Zoomy

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