Access Messages While Roaming

[jigginsmcgee]

I travel to the US fairly often and almost always setup Talk/Text/Data with Roam Mobility. This trip, however, I only setup data.

Having forgotten to forward my number before I left Canada (due to having a lack of phone number to forward to), I'm wondering if there's any way for me to access text messages that could be being sent to my PM number?

I unfortunatley forgot about a service that I have two factor authentication setup to send text messages to me and I'm locked out of it until I can get those messages. Womp womp.

Any help would be greatly appreciated – thanks for your time!

PS. I know all about PM's lack of roaming (and also the soon to be announced roaming packages starting in November). This is a long shot but I figured I'd ask!

[computergeek541]

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@DesiMonk wrote:
I am traveling to USA on coming Friday evening (Nov 11). Is there any hope of having roaming package before that ? If not I will have to set up roam mobility package for week.
Thanks

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No one hear knows yet as Public Mobile has yet to announce it.  Public employees might have some information, but to my knowledge, haven't said anything yet.

[DesiMonk]

I am traveling to USA on coming Friday evening (Nov 11). Is there any hope of having roaming package before that ? If not I will have to set up roam mobility package for week.
Thanks

[jigginsmcgee]

You're all awesome. Thanks for the information. I'm guessing that none of this is possible to setup until I'm back in Canada (or at least within shot of a Telus tower)?

[srlawren]

Thanks @imcphers, that's a good point.

Actually, if someone were to use voip.ms or fongo as their regular texting provider, they wouldn't even need to forward, they could just continue to get the text's over data while away from Canada.  

[imcphers]

voip.ms does have a text forwarding feature -  you could get into some convoluted configurations for text based TFA that would allow you to access messages no matter what type of roaming service you have setup.  

Take a look at this WIKI - https://wiki.voip.ms/article/SMS

I use the to handle the issue where some texts my home phone # by accident 

[Shazia_K · Accepted solution]

Hello @jigginsmcgee,

I'm sorry about the delayed response, 

You won't be able to receive any text messages to your Public Mobile phone the minute you step out from the Telus (PublicMobile) network and there is also no way for us to do that in our end 

Stay tuned for our awesome roaming pack coming soon! 

Thank you @imm1304 @srlawren, 

Shazia

[imm1304]

Hi @jigginsmcgee, a notification glitch has crept up in the last hour.    

So, there may be a delay in getting reply as Shazia isn't seeing new notifications as confirmed on the thread discussing the notification error.  

[jigginsmcgee]

What do you think, @Shazia_K? Any hope for me?

[srlawren]

Thanks for pointing that out, @JaK.  I did mention that there's no way to forward texts prior to mentioning the Fongo/Dialer solution for talk, but didn't manke it clear that it would not solve this particular issue even if it had been in place.  

[JaK]

Hi @srlawren;

Re the Fongo option, doesn't the note that you mentioned about texts not being forwarded apply to it as well? Fongo does have a SMS service (for a small fee), but would you not need to redirect your 2FA to that explicitly?

[jigginsmcgee]

Great response! Unfortunately this service only has an option for 2FA via text messages right now. The Fongo suggestion is a great one. Hopefully when PM's roaming stuff comes out I won't have to bother with the SIM card swaps anymore.

[srlawren]

@jigginsmcgee I don't think there's any way to do that, but I'll loop in @Shazia_K in case she has any way in her back-end systems.  I would think not, for privacy reasons, but maybe I'm wrong.

Unfortunately, even if you had set up call-forwarding, it doesn't forward SMS messages, so you still would have been hooped.

Two brief suggestions for future travel:

1) When possible, don't use SMS for TFA (two-factor authentication), for reasons such as this!  See if the site(s) support Google Authenticator, which is data-based and doesn't depend on SMS.  Bonus: don't use Google's Authenticator app, use Authy, which lets you back up and sync your TFA codes across multiple devices (with encryption).

I wish all sites supported Authenticator!  Unfortunately many only offer SMS, including Twitter which should know better.  SIgh.

2) If you're going to have data in the USA for future use, then set up a free fongo.ca account, and download the Fongo app.  You will get a free local phone number in your own area code.  Then, before you got to the USA, forward your PM # to your Fongo number, and you will get the calls over data while in the US.  Bonus:  also download and set up Hangouts Dialer before you go, and confirm your (PM) phone number via SMS before you go (only need to do once).  Then you can use Hangouts Dailer while in the US to made calls over data that appear to come from your usual PM number instead of your Roam Mobility number or your Fongo number.