Province-Wide calling

[Rustynayl]

Hey guys, I know this topic has been discussed over and over... and I thought I totally understood how province-wide calling worked. So here's the scenario.

My dad and I are both with Public Mobile, and both live in Calgary. We both have a province-wide plan, so of course regular calls work fine when we're both at home.

This past week, we both traveled to Ontario. I tried calling his cell phone, but was told that the call could not be complete because I do not have a long distance plan.

Now I thought how province-wide calling worked, was that I could call anyone that is in the same province as me. Since my dad and I were both travelling in Ontario, I thought this would have qualified as making a call within the same province. Am I wrong here?

[pakmode]

It was so much better in the old days when they had Local Access Numbers people could dial into for free while travelling.

ie. In the old days if you dialed into that local access number, and your father was inside that cell, it was free to receive that call. 

[stonechucker]

Texting however, is always available, in and out of each Canadian province.  It's available, like data, across the nation, no matter which calling service you have.

[Rustynayl]

Thanks for the clarification, everyone. This all makes sense now! 🙂

[computergeek541]

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@Rustynayl wrote:

This past week, we both traveled to Ontario. I tried calling his cell phone, but was told that the call could not be complete because I do not have a long distance plan.

Now I thought how province-wide calling worked, was that I could call anyone that is in the same province as me. Since my dad and I were both travelling in Ontario, I thought this would have qualified as making a call within the same province. Am I wrong here?

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Unfortunately, you are wrong.

When you made this call, it counts as a call from Ontario to Alberta.   Calling any phone number assigned to Calgary while you are in Ontario would be. The two phones being physically in the same city is irrelevant.

Not only is this a long distance call for you to make that call, but it was also a long distance call for yout dad to receive it.  Now, I know there has been some talk about people being able to answer their calls while otuside of the home province, but that isn't supposed to happen unless the person either has Canada-wide long distance in the plan or as an add-on.

[imm1304]

Hi @Rustynayl!

When traveling out of province, you can make outgoing calls to the numbers from the province you are physically in.  So in your case, the only outgoing calls you can make for free would be to Ontario numbers.  Since your dad's number has an Alberta area code, it is an out of province call while you are in Ontario.  So its not included in your base plan.

Easy work around is to use Fongo or Hangout Dialer to make free calls using data or wifi.  Your data and SMS/MMS are nationwide and if you are not making a lot of calls using one of these VOIP apps, you won't really use up much data at all.  

If you want to be able to make a lot of calls, then its better to purchase one of the long distance calling add-on which never expires and can be a nice backup for those occasional times when you need to make a long distance call.  

[Rustynayl]

Thanks @ShawnC13. That makes sense. So if I were to call a phone number with an Ontario area code, then it would have likely gone through ok?

[ShawnC13 · Accepted solution]

@Rustynayl, you would need to call long distance to your dad because of his area code would  be long distance from the province you are calling.   It would the be same if you were in Ontario and call back to a Calgary landline as it is an out of Province (outside of Ontartio which you were calling from) area code.

ETA  Numbers from Ontario would have to call long distance to reach your dad while he is in Ontario as well (unless they have Canada wide calling)