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

[Val_T]

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 8th, 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

[WearySky]

@srlawren I wonder if anybody actually has any real numbers in those exchanges, that aren't for-profit services?  The phone companies seem to be working with the teleconferencing/long distance services that operate in these exchanges in order to make all kinds of money.  I'd be surprised if they're giving any numbers to actual residential customers in those exchanges.

[makkahn28]

Must say this, alternative if PPL must dial these area codes, Purchase a Calling card, that is Only Viable option until PM conjures an alternative to the situation

[dparibello82]

@Tvisforme I get better data and phone signal when I'm roaming with T-Mobile partners. I know they run on the same networks, but for one reason or another, I have yet to drop a call while roaming with T-Mobile vs the occasional dropped call with PM. I also get better signal strength in different buildings and geographies. Again, couldn't tell you why, but that has just been my experience.

@WearySky my T-Mobile data has been running at LTE when roaming. I understand the buying power of Canadian plans, but don't you find it somewhat concerning that I can get a cheaper plan in the US to use in Canada? When the majority of phone plans switch to borderless calling, as the US has done, I'll drop my Canadian phone in a heartbeat to take advantage of their better plans and pricing + I can avoid all the roaming fees Canadian phone companies charge when travelling in the US. Just seems like poor business practice to encourage me to move my business to the US or provide little to no incentive to keep my business.

[WearySky]

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@dparibello82 wrote:

@WearySky my T-Mobile data has been running at LTE when roaming. I understand the buying power of Canadian plans, but don't you find it somewhat concerning that I can get a cheaper plan in the US to use in Canada? When the majority of phone plans switch to borderless calling, as the US has done, I'll drop my Canadian phone in a heartbeat to take advantage of their better plans and pricing + I can avoid all the roaming fees Canadian phone companies charge when travelling in the US. Just seems like poor business practice to encourage me to move my business to the US or provide little to no incentive to keep my business.

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That's interesting that you get LTE in Canada on your T-Mobile plan.  The last time I'd seen any discussion of it, LTE data was not included when roaming.  So that's definitely a plus.  It's still technically limited since you're not supposed to use it more than 50% of the time outside of the US, but still interesting.

And no, I'm not really THAT concerned that our plans are more expensive than in the US - that 10x the population difference, and a smaller area to cover network-wise, makes a significant difference.  We're still getting screwed here in general (evidenced by the fact that the Big 3 can offer way cheaper plans in provinces where there's a viable 4th carrier, like MTS in Manitoba, Sasktel in Saskatchewan and Videotron in Quebec), but I don't really expect Canadian national carriers to really be able to provide the same level of service for the same price that American providers can, simply due to economies of scale.

[kav2001c]

Does anyone want to dial Iowa or South Dakota? Not unless it is a wrong number ha ha

The Cali one seems odd, esp since that state has so many area codes in it, 1 just looks all lonely

[kav2001c]

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@Rockdaddy22 wrote:
Wow this is insane, is this just a PM thing?

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It's funny isn't it? Most carriers exclude Alaska and Hawaii as being expensive

[daredogg]

@kav2001c I wondered as well why a place like Reedley, California would be excluded, because as @Jsauter posted, it's one exchange of 9999 numbers max. I went to the wiki page about Traffic Pumping (again that Jsauter posted), and was astounded by this...

Rural carriers can receive millions of dollars of fees [ for pumping calls through their area code exchanges ], which they then share with the ostensibly "local" service providers [ the big phone companies ], who are responsible for vastly increasing call volume above typical rural usage.

Hail to the MAN! It's terrible how the BIG companies exist to exploit! *shaking head* Don't know if this is the situation in Reedley, but it for sure is in Iowa and South Dakota.

[WearySky]

That Reedley exchange looks to be commonly used for those free conference call services as well.  A quick googling around shows other people being unable to call 559-726 numbers on their Google voice, etc.  More traffic pumping.  Capitalism at its finest!

[kav2001c]

@daredogg I am unsure if I sympathize with AT&T / Google etc. The term Traffic Pumping is a term fabricated by long distance carriers to paint rural areas negatively because they have higher fees.

It also is counter intuitive because they would REALLY need to make it up on volume, the fees actually DECREASE every minute used so driving in extra volume is kind of pointless no?

Despite having a possible 9999 "bad" numbers, according to the FCC there are fewer than 100 actually being restricted. 100 for the entire country, not just 1 exchange.