Parking fee

[kselmak]

Wouldn't it be nice if pm offered parking spots for phone numbers.

It could be well used to save some moderator time for early renewals, as people could switch to it and then buy their existing plan without need to bug moderators.

That way people would be less likely to let their plan expire while they are away for prolonged periods. 

And of course the business that comes from outside, people seem to need that service. Many voip companies charge 25 or so for porting in and I'm not sure about prices but i have seen 3 monthly. Some give free forwarding.

Porting out of voip doesn't look like fun. 10 for sim definitely beats port-in fees. Would it make sense for pm to take it on for 5 monthly, maybe autopay gives you 2off and forwarding? (Not to mention that they would be couple of clicks from having awesome service)

Any opinions?

[saeliux]

Yea speakout would be better if we only needed talk.

PM is somewhat more cost efficient for text and data. Addon is $30 and never expires. Speakout seems to expire in a month if we needed 1gb of data.

So for users that are in the country every 4 months and only stays for less than a week, PM works nicely. Haha... I think my father in law is just such a special case. 

[kselmak]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

Trying to understand this topic. I think I hear two possible benefits to this:

#1-  Storing a number for longer periods of time at a lower cost than the least expensive plan a carrier offers.

#2-  Store the number in order to then get access to all account options with PM including the plan you were currently on but have fully consumed some part of the plan and would like to renew early.

For #2 I fail to see why this is so convoluted. The online "change Plan" function was designed to let customers change their own plan and has options for the change to process at next renewal or right away. Your existing plan doesn't come up on the plan list because when designed it was thought that  no one would want to change plans to their existing plan, that is illogical. But there is logic to it as a way to renew early with "renew right now". All that is needed is for PM to modify the function to add your existing plan to the available list of plans to switch to and it is DONE! Anything to improve convenience to customers AND reduce moderator time to fix things should be high on the list to get done around here!

JMHO.... Terry

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Hi

When it comes to second option, the plan does show up but when you confirm that you want it now nothing happens your account balance remains same and your dates didn't chance.

There is 3rd benefit and it's for people who are away for extended periods of time, so instead of suspending they could just move to dirt cheap plan, and this way you don't have to worry about 90 days and losing your number. And pm would get couple of bucks too

[stonechucker]

Speak out has something it seems.  Check there.

[saeliux]

My father in law got a PM account for parking a number. He is only in the country 3 to 4 times a year. PM was easy to get and since the addons dont expire, it was the one that made sense.

But he needs to be careful to renew before the $90 days though. A nice 1 year expiry would really be nice. 

[AE_Collector]

Trying to understand this topic. I think I hear two possible benefits to this:

#1-  Storing a number for longer periods of time at a lower cost than the least expensive plan a carrier offers.

#2-  Store the number in order to then get access to all account options with PM including the plan you were currently on but have fully consumed some part of the plan and would like to renew early.

For #2 I fail to see why this is so convoluted. The online "change Plan" function was designed to let customers change their own plan and has options for the change to process at next renewal or right away. Your existing plan doesn't come up on the plan list because when designed it was thought that  no one would want to change plans to their existing plan, that is illogical. But there is logic to it as a way to renew early with "renew right now". All that is needed is for PM to modify the function to add your existing plan to the available list of plans to switch to and it is DONE! Anything to improve convenience to customers AND reduce moderator time to fix things should be high on the list to get done around here!

JMHO.... Terry

[Psygineer]

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@stonechucker wrote:

Once again, pie In the sky dreaming going on.  No frills carrier.  Carrier that doesn’t fix known issues from 3 years ago.  Suggesting an option to park your number is just wasted here.  The best option for parking is to stop paying for your plan, let it expire for about 85 days, then renew, and wit again up to 85 days after re-expirered, and top up.

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You sound a little disenchanted my friend!

[stonechucker]

Once again, pie In the sky dreaming going on.  No frills carrier.  Carrier that doesn’t fix known issues from 3 years ago.  Suggesting an option to park your number is just wasted here.  The best option for parking is to stop paying for your plan, let it expire for about 85 days, then renew, and wit again up to 85 days after re-expirered, and top up.

[kselmak]

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@will13am wrote:

@kselmak, not every service can offer every feature.  You have found one of the benefits of VOIP services for number parking.  Will Public Mobile ever include such capabilities, very likely never.

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I thought so too. Especially if it is called parking as it usually to many means emailed voicemails and other typical voip features. But having dirt cheap plan that offers pretty much nothing or just forwarding wouldn't be that bad for anybody involved. I've seen people asking for something like that years back on this community. Many believed they could get no features over 90 days for 25. There is definitely demand. Just a thought

[kselmak]

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@GinYVR wrote:

@kselmakor you can just park at Speakout where you put in $20, you are good for a year.

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Yes that's very affordable.

I'm not shopping for parking, i just read a post here where somebody is trying to renew early so they will have to ask mods to do it, it would be much faster and easier if they could jump on couple of bucks plan and then switch back. 8 is not too bad but 3 would be just super easy for many to do

[will13am]

@kselmak, not every service can offer every feature.  You have found one of the benefits of VOIP services for number parking.  Will Public Mobile ever include such capabilities, very likely never.

[GinYVR]

@kselmakor you can just park at Speakout where you put in $20, you are good for a year.