Community

bradman20012 · ‎02-26-2019

Ive noticed that my phone calls get cut off when im approaching 2 hours of talk time. The call gets dropped then I have too call back the person. My friend has also noticed this. Normal practice for public mobile? It is kind've annoying having to call back the person. Keep in mind I dont partake in calls that last this long on a regualar basis but its just super annoying when I am and this happens.

darlicious · ‎08-10-2021

@ChrisL

The 150 minute time limit appears to be a pm limit. Tested with telus and my sister. She was still waxing on when I texted her that our experiment failed. Telus didn't cut her off at the 3 min+ mark after I had been cut off by pm. It can be a blessing in disguise....with those contacts that go on, and on and on......click!.....then send a quick text " Oops sorry pm randomly cuts calls off for no reason?!!" "Toodles!"

Nezgar · ‎08-10-2021

@softech wrote:
.. btw, Freephoneline.ca , Fongo's parent company, cut off calls right ta 4 hours.. I would imagine Fongo would do the same.. but it is 100% better than PM.. LoL

Ah yes... Under the hood, Fongo Home Phone is the same service as freephoneline.ca, just with a managed hardware ATA.

With voip.ms, I can manually configure what the maximum call length is yourself... I believe it defaults to something like 2.5 hours, but I extended it out to 4 or 5 on my account...

softech · ‎08-10-2021

.. btw, Freephoneline.ca , Fongo's parent company, cut off calls right at 4 hours.. I would imagine Fongo would do the same.. but it is 100% better than PM.. LoL

ChrisL · ‎08-10-2021

Good ideas Nezgar, thanks for that.

Nezgar · ‎08-10-2021

@ChrisL

Yeah, but now that we know based on many user accounts of this phenomena with Public Mobile on the Public Mobile forums, I would recommend using an alternate service for those specific calls where you know you might be on for an extended amount of time like that... ie Fongo mobile or TextNow to make those particular calls over WiFi.

Or use a landline if available. My own home phone service used to be with Fongo home phone ($5-6/mo for unlimited calling to all canada provinces, not territories) and now voip.ms which has an even lower monthly cost but .5 to 1cent per minute for usage - though calls to tollfree numbers are completely free. I spent 3.5 hours on the phone with CRA earlier this yaer, and voip.ms kept the call up the whole time like a champ!!!

ChrisL · ‎08-10-2021

Only recently discovered this phenomenon myself. Ask anyone who has booked an airline flight recently. The various flip-flops in messaging and vague hints by the federal government at when they would open borders again has led to a lot of flight schedules being trimmed back, each time the government extended closures another month.

Then, the turnaround post covid occurred really rapidly (the feds provided NO advanced warning) and the airlines have had huge problems trying to get staff to return, get retraining done and get on the phones to answer all the calls related to the cancelled and rescheduled flights. Here in Canada over the past two months, various callers report hold times up to 8 or 9 hours. My own experience is that I get cut off at (almost) exactly 2h30m +/- 10 seconds. so it's becoming nearly impossible to get an airline agent to answer because I keep getting dumped out of the queue and starting over. I finally got through last night - the agent answered at 2h18m, and before we could finish fixing my flights the call was cut off, so back to square one!

computergeek541 · ‎04-05-2021

@will13am wrote:
@wickedgx wrote:
Yeah there should be a limit on unlimited minutes. If everyone left their phone in a call (maybe some bots), that would prob break the system.
This. When I was with Wind, I can attest that the cut off is exactly at 2 hours. I don't know what the limit for this service is, but it probably has one. On Rogers, the cutoff seems not as repeatible but it is around 3ish hours. For 99.99% of the time, nobody will notice it.

I suspect that when a call disconnects unexpectedly, the customer could often think that it was simply a network anomaly. I do realize that things might be different over the last year, with people making more use of their phones because the difficulty and inability to meet with others, but you're right that many people wouldn't notice a call time limit with people communicating more by text and instant messages.

HALIMACS · ‎04-05-2021

@Retlaw58

If that works - that is a great piece of information to share.

If anyone happens to be able to test this, please post it on this thread.

RosieR · ‎04-05-2021

@Retlaw58 wrote:
I was cut twice exactly 2 hrs 30 minutes 54 seconds. the clock seems to reset if you message/text yourself or someone else proir to the cutoff time. It worked once so far for me.

Hi @Retlaw58 this has been discussed recently. Please read this thread

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/2-5-time-limit-per-call/m-p/672845

As I have a landline, I don't have a problem keeping track of my talk minutes. lol That's why I don't give my mobile number to sister lol she loves to talk. 😂😂😂

Happy Easter Monday

RosieR

Nezgar · ‎04-05-2021

@Retlaw58 wrote:
I was cut twice exactly 2 hrs 30 minutes 54 seconds. the clock seems to reset if you message/text yourself or someone else proir to the cutoff time. It worked once so far for me.

Oh that's an interesting hack. I'll have to test that next time I'm on a long call to see if I can get it to last longer than 2h31m!

Retlaw58 · ‎04-05-2021

I was cut twice exactly 2 hrs 30 minutes 54 seconds. the clock seems to reset if you message/text yourself or someone else prior to the cutoff time. It worked once so far for me. Perhaps it shows activity on the SIM card. I was able to go 3 hours and 40 minutes and finally the CRA answered.

awesomegirl · ‎02-03-2021

for me it automatically cuts off right when it hits 2 hours and 31 minutes exactly

Pawprints1986 · ‎03-31-2020

I had no idea this was a thing... What if you're on hold with a company and you lose your spot?

I can see they don't want useless calls taking up space, but there should be some way to distinguish... Or max it out to like 6 hours or something

Many of us don't have land lines anymore.....

PMOttawa · ‎04-01-2019

anybody has it figured out got cutoff twice after 30min sharp. I get it that for 2hours they would cut you off, but 30 min that is short, as wait time when calling anywhere for service these days can easily be over that lenght (specially when you get transfer 2-3 time)

will13am · ‎02-26-2019

@wickedgx wrote:
Yeah there should be a limit on unlimited minutes. If everyone left their phone in a call (maybe some bots), that would prob break the system.

This. When I was with Wind, I can attest that the cut off is exactly at 2 hours. I don't know what the limit for this service is, but it probably has one. On Rogers, the cutoff seems not as repeatible but it is around 3ish hours. For 99.99% of the time, nobody will notice it.

RobertQc · ‎02-26-2019

@wickedgx wrote:
I don't think any carrier does that but that would be neat. However it's prob not worth it for them to implement as I don't think many people have calls for over 2 hours.

Maybe try a landline next time?

@wickedgx I think the issue with this is people don't know its going to happen. For most people a 2 hour phone call is a once if ever in a life time kind of event so they didn't know they would have needed to call from a landline and if they were waiting for 2 hours it was probably a pretty important call. I don't know of any other tech that automatically cuts you off when actually in use by the user. This is out of the ordinary.

I also do not own a landline and as of recently I now only know of 1 person left with a landline, my 92 year old grand mother who still has a VCR and a shelf filled with VHS movies.

wickedgx · ‎02-26-2019

I don't think any carrier does that but that would be neat. However it's prob not worth it for them to implement as I don't think many people have calls for over 2 hours.

Maybe try a landline next time?

RobertQc · ‎02-26-2019

@wickedgx wrote:
Yeah there should be a limit on unlimited minutes. If everyone left their phone in a call (maybe some bots), that would prob break the system.

@wickedgx It would be nice for the system to notify you and say "Hey, you've been on call for 2 hours" or better yet before it disconnects you give you a chance to stay on, "in 1 minute unless you press 777 you will be disconnected" or some way to prevent this from happening if this is a real call, while rare, sometimes you have to wait on hold longer than 2 hours.

wickedgx · ‎02-26-2019

Yeah there should be a limit on unlimited minutes. If everyone left their phone in a call (maybe some bots), that would prob break the system.

RobertQc · ‎02-26-2019

@bradman20012

This has been reported many times it is a known "issue" or "feature" depending on how you define it.

@will13am wrote:
This seems to be an unwritten feature of unlimited calling plans in Canada. I know for a fact that Wind did this. Calls would end right at the 2 hour mark.

@AdamAy wrote:
They do cut off at exactly the same time, it's always after 138 minutes

@kav2001c wrote:
every single carrier has some limit. Otherwise network would have multiple orphan calls.
Never tried to test Public so no idea what limit is (could be higher) but sooner or later will hit a limit and call will be disconnected.

Probably same limit as Telus/Koodo/PC Mobile have

@kav2001c wrote:
Time is def not set in stone

Test 1 - 2:12
Test 2 - 2:04

I have seen others claim as high as 2:30 on these boards

Lieux · ‎02-26-2019

@bradman20012 can you go in your self serve account and see if somehting like different when you have to call back??? In your PLAN/ADDS-on and USAGE HISTORY....

bradman20012 · ‎02-26-2019

Im pretty sure it has nothng to do with the tower as i get full bars at home and that would be just extremelly convenient that every time around the same time it cuts off. I also highly double its my phone, my iphone xs max worked perfectly with virgin on calls over 3 hours

wickedgx · ‎02-26-2019

Public is on telus network so it shouldn't be that bad.

Alex888 · ‎02-26-2019

Are you sure it's not just a poor connection?

It's probably a poor connection with the tower, interference, or a problem with your phone.