topic Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages? in Announcements

Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Val_T — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 14:29:05 GMT

Hey Community,

As of December 8^th, 2016, calls made to the following six digit combinations will no longer be supported on any Talk plans and add-ons that include U.S. calling to:

State	Excluded areas after December 8^th, 2016	Area codes
California	Reedley	559-726-XXXX
Iowa	Carroll	712-775-XXXX
	Lake Park	712-432-XXXX
	Charles City	641-552-XXXX
South Dakota	Redfield	605-475-XXXX
	Pine Ridge	605-562-XXXX
	Fort Thompsons	605-477-XXXX

It's really important that we offer our products and services to our customers at fair rates. Unfortunately, our agreement with our partners in the U.S. makes it extremely expensive to support calls made to these regions. In order to keep our Talk prices as they are, we had to make a difficult decision to exclude these numbers from our Talk packages.

We realize that this might be an inconvenience to some of you so we are exploring options that would bridge this gap.

Thank you,

Your Public Mobile Community team

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

daredogg — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 14:41:52 GMT

Boycott visiting these areas! j/k Good to know, and also this must mean U.S. roaming will be here soon. The anticipation!

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Rockdaddy22 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 14:43:10 GMT

Wow this is insane, is this just a PM thing?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Rockdaddy22 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 14:44:42 GMT

I assume the fine print allows you guys to do this? Do any other carriers have these problems? If not, I'm kinda disappointed in PM 😞

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

CaNuCk07 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 14:58:30 GMT

Not seeing this as the biggest deal, lets face it, Iowa and South Dakota? Maybe if it was New York or something, but i can deal without all the corn from Iowa.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Rockdaddy22 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:00:57 GMT

Who knows where's next

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

imcphers — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:03:06 GMT

The PM contract with this vendor must be billing out a more than 0.04 per minute - couldn't PM just charge folks that need to call to these locations double minutes vs blocking them all together - blocking the call altogether seems like a strange way to solve the problem - too many exceptions on where you can call and can not. I guess folks will need to use fongo or google talk.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Rockdaddy22 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:05:55 GMT

It's all very strange to me

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

CaNuCk07 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:55:05 GMT

curious if these same changes are taking place with Telus? I would highly doubt it.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Rockdaddy22 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 16:02:14 GMT

That's what I want to know, what about Koodo?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

computergeek541 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 19:27:01 GMT

Unlimited Canada and U.S.-Wide talk plans that don't even include unlimited calling to all places in the continental U.S.?

Making matters worse, customers won't be able to call those numbers even if they are willing to pay extra, because as we know, Public doesn't do pay-per-use.

Public's also going to have to change the way that they advertise the U.S. talk plans and add-ons. Even then, who's going to subcribe to them now, if Public is going to start excluding certain cities and area codes? I can't recall any phone company company in Canada that just charges different rates for places inside the continental U.S., or any that exclude certain places. I believe Public should just charge what they need to charge and not overcomplicate things, which I see this as.

I'm dissapointed in Public on this one, dissapointed a term already mentioned earlier in this thread.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

makkahn28 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 19:08:10 GMT

Hopefully this will be resolved, and these restored some day

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

WearySky — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 19:23:39 GMT

It looks like Telus has done this for Telus customers as well (excluded these areas from US calling plans). See this article: http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/telus/telus-80-canada-usa-plan-bc/

Interesting that just this small handful of local carriers decided not to play ball.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

dparibello82 — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 19:26:00 GMT

While I don't know if this poses a problem for me yet, I don't understand how it is possible that this isn't an issue. If it wasn't long distance for people to call me on a US number, I'd have switched to their phone plans long ago. I can get better phone signal, data and calling with Tmobile plan in Canada than I can get with any Canadian carrier. Not to mention it works in the US!

E.g. My us T-Mobile account offers Unlimited north American calling (includes Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska) and texting, and 3 Gb of data anywhere in the US and Canada. All this for $45 usd /month. Oh, and streaming certain items, like Netflix, doesn't count towards my data consumption.

So my question is, why/how does calling these 7 regions pose a cost burden to PM in Canada?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

srlawren — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:19:34 GMT

@Val_T sorry just a follow-up question for clarity:

Are you saying that:

1) Unlimited Canada+US Wide talk plan no longer includes calls to those are codes?

2) Long distance add-on minutes no longer cover calling those area codes?

3) both? Other?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

srlawren — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:20:39 GMT

@CaNuCk07 wrote:
Not seeing this as the biggest deal, lets face it, Iowa and South Dakota? Maybe if it was New York or something, but i can deal without all the corn from Iowa.

@CaNuCk07 I think you were joking around (hehe), but on the off chance you weren't, this would be a big deal for anyone with friends or family in Iowa and South Dakota that used to be able to call them freely....

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

WearySky — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:21:54 GMT

@dparibello82 wrote:
While I don't know if this poses a problem for me yet, I don't understand how it is possible that this isn't an issue. If it wasn't long distance for people to call me on a US number, I'd have switched to their phone plans long ago. I can get better phone signal, data and calling with Tmobile plan in Canada than I can get with any Canadian carrier. Not to mention it works in the US!

E.g. My us T-Mobile account offers Unlimited north American calling (includes Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska) and texting, and 3 Gb of data anywhere in the US and Canada. All this for $45 usd /month. Oh, and streaming certain items, like Netflix, doesn't count towards my data consumption.

So my question is, why/how does calling these 7 regions pose a cost burden to PM in Canada?

1 - That T-Mobile account is limited to 3G data only in Canada, is it not?

2 - Some amount of it is about bargaining power - US carriers have 10x the number of subscribers that Canadian carriers do (on average, based on population), and so they can negotiate much better roaming rates. For specific numbers - T-Mobile USA has nearly 70 million subscribers, and they're only the *third largest* carrier in the US. Telus has 8.5 million wireless subscribers. You don't think T-Mobile has more power to negotiate better rates vs Telus? If those regions are standing firm and drawing a line at 10 or 15 cents a minute (or more) to connect to their networks, should Telus be required to suck it up and take a loss on that?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Tvisforme — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:42:37 GMT

@dparibello82 wrote:
While I don't know if this poses a problem for me yet, I don't understand how it is possible that this isn't an issue. If it wasn't long distance for people to call me on a US number, I'd have switched to their phone plans long ago. I can get better phone signal, data and calling with Tmobile plan in Canada than I can get with any Canadian carrier. Not to mention it works in the US!

Out of curiousity, how exactly do you get "better phone signal [and] data...than [you] can get with any Canadian carrier" when you are using Canadian carrier infrastructure? I can understand that you might find a plan that offers you more, but the network technology is going to be the same given that T-Mobile does not have a network in Canada.

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Tvisforme — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:44:57 GMT

@Val_T wrote:
"As of December 8th, 2016, calls made to the following six digit combinations will no longer be supported on any Talk plans and add-ons that include U.S. calling..."

@Val_T Is there (or will there be) a post or FAQ on the site that collects all of the information from these announcements?

Re: Which U.S. area codes are not supported in the U.S. Talk packages?

Jsauter — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 21:14:25 GMT

I assume that Public is filtering these locations because of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping

Google Voice prevents calls to these exchanges as well apparently.

While this doesn't really impact me at all because I hardly make phone calls anymore in general and I have no friends or family in those exchanges, I hope this is not a slippery slope where more and more places get removed from US calling. I suspect this will be a one off scenario.