Extending Amount of Time Before Phone Number is Cancelled

[mightytb]

From what I've read, a phone number is fully cancelled by Public Mobile if the customer hasn't used it in 90 days. Would it be possible to extend this time frame to 1 year, kind of like what Fido has with their prepaid service? This way, if you travel out of the country for several months, you can still come home to the same phone number.

[NDesai]

There are other bigger concerns to worry about imo.

Barely anyone will take more than 90 days vacation.

If they do, it is fairly cheap ($10) to extend for another 100 days. 

[Luddite]

I agree with @NDesai

[mightytb]

@NDesai There are other reasons to be out of the country than on vacation. I wasn't so much suggesting this for full-time residents, but rather, for people who are part-time residents. A few scenarios I can think of off of the top of my head:

• Seasonal Canadian residents.
• People who work on contract in another country for only part of the year (happens more often than you think).
• University students who study down in the States (or some other international location) who come back home for the summer.

While I agree that it's not a massive concern, it's just a bit inconvenient for these people to have to go through the process of getting a new line and then having to give out a different number to their friends and family every time they return to Canada.

[Luddite]

@mightytb The current best bet for the scenarios you list is the voip app from fongo.com using cellular data plan or wifi. They would keep their number alive by making a call now and then over wifi from wherever they are living, then activating a new PM SIM on a data plan when they get to Canada. Since they are maintain their voip number from anywhere in the world, creating PM accounts as needed would have no affect on their active Canadian phone number.

[rzhevskii2000]

Just want to add for those unfamiliar with Fongo. Install Fongo and read FAQ about phone number, and you will see that you can simply keep your current phone number (porting). Then, you will be able to reserve the number and even continue making phone calls when you're on Wi-Fi (like in McDonalds or at work).