Forwarding PM to Voip while out of country

[mimmo]

Hi my wife and I are traveling out of country for 45 days. I know and understand PM will not work once we leave Canada, which i am completly fine with, but  I can forward my PM calls to a provincial number.

Any recomendations on an inexpencive Voip that will give me a local number, that way i can forward my calls to that new number and recieve calls (when on wifi) and check messages etc...

I used to use magicjack, but it is a little costly once you get a canadian number etc.

thanks in advance

dominic

[RLBL]

Hi @ckl

Thanks for your information, but it does not actually answer my question (which might be buried in my ramblings)

I have a province wide plan. What I want to do is set up the phone like this:

- busy: forward to voice mail

- unanswered: forward to voice mail

- unreachable: forward to fongo (which will ring on the app, and if goes unaswered goes to fongo vmail)

I wish to do this for the occasions I am driving out of province and forget to forward my calls (essentially trying to cover my basis so I never have to do it manually). The question is:

If I am out of province, does the system see me as unreachable or am I technically still reachable from the system/network point of view, but cannot receive the call because PM is blocking it because of the plan I chose.  If I am unreachable, my phone setup as described will cover me. If I am reachable but not able to receive calls, I assume it will not work.

[ckl]

@RLBL

Yes it is possible. I have it set to forward all 3 to my home phone number (VOIP) which then, if continues to be unanswered, goes to my VOIP voicemail. The VOIP voicemail then emails me an audio file. I never use PM voicemail.

Just change the one you want to the forwarding number starting with +1<areacode><Phonenumber>

As for your other question about "unreachable," I'm not sure.

[RLBL]

Question:

On my phone I have the option to forward calls under 3 scenarios:

- busy

- unanswered

- unreachable

In all 3 cases it goes to voice mail. I am wondering if I can set the "unreachable" to go my Fongo number (which is an Ontario number, local as well but that should not matter), this way when I go out of province it will reach me on my fongo number.

I want to do this for those times I forget to forward my phone before leaving; if this works I assume it would be automatic because I would leave it like this 100% of the time (which would mean when I am on airplane mode or the phone is turned off all my calls will go to fongo - which is fine)

edit:

On the Telus site I found the following:
"Unreachable - Incoming calls are forwarded to the destination number when your phone is turned off or not receiving the network's signals."

From this I might assume that my phone is receiving the network signal, but can't receive the call because of plan restrictions.  That would tell me what I proposed will not work... but maybe someone has a definitive answer?

[srlawren]

Thanks @ckl!  That's worth a look for sure.  I like geeky.  🙂

[ckl]

There's another little known VOIP provider I use with my home phone. It's Anveo.com. It's a little geeky in that you have to build a flowchart of what to do when you get an incoming call, but it's really effective in weeding out robocallers and blacklisted phone numbers. Also, you can get phone numbers from a number of different countries so if you get to your destination and want to make local calls, just get a number from that area. It works with SIPDroid on Android, so you can actually take your home phone with you as well as any other numbers you setup. The Free option is pretty cheap if you don't make a ton of calls.

[srlawren · Accepted solution]

@mimmo as @JaK , @imcphers and @Luddite mentioned, fongo is very popular in the PM community.  You will of course have to make sure your phone is unlocked, and get a SIM card from a provider in the country(s) you are visiting (and the plan you activate with that provider will need to have data in the plan, of course).

In addition to forwarding to a fongo (or other VoIP provider), you could also consider using Hangouts Dialer for outbound calls.  Install it while you are still in Canada (now, for example), and go into the settings and verify your phone number.  This will send a text to your PM number, and once you enter the code into Hangouts, you can have Hangouts send your own PM number as the caller ID info.  That way, when you call folks from abroad, they will still see your own number instead of a tempoary number provided by the provider(s) in the country(s) you're visiting.

One last note--there isn't a way to "forward" text messages. Any data-based messaging apps will go with you and your phone regardless of where you are, so consider transitioning your contacts to messaging you using WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, or other data-based messaging app, before you go.

[Luddite]

My sister uses a PM data plan with Fongo and it is free to call most Canadian numbers. I also have an account as my backup plan for any PM service interruptions since it works over wifi too.

You do need to establish the call forwarding before leaving Canada; it is activated from your phone, not online.

[imcphers]

I use voip.ms - DID numbers are about 0.99 per month - it is a prepaid service, and the minimum prepayment is $25.00US.

They do have some cool features and it will email you all your voice mails.

The other service that is mentioned a lot is http://www.fongo.com/

Have not looked at it much, but is says "FREE" all over the website, so that might be a better option.

[JaK]

Hi @mimmo;

Yes you can forward your number to another in-province VOIP number, that should work fine. There are lots of VOIP apps available, many recommend Fongo.com, believe it is free for basic call use.