SERVICE??

[DAW]

We are both quitting PM for good. After 2 years I cannot take the frustration and unreliability for another day. It hasn't worked for a couple of weeks now anyway. This is serious because it could have cost us our lives recently on a busy American Interstate, when we have two tires blow out on our RV. Thx to its extremely incapable service we had no signal and could not call for help from a tow truck company, EVEN THOUGH I had purchased roaming, before leaving Canada!!!!!!! As a result of PM's complete failure to function, we sat disabled for SIX HOURS on the side of the road in Arizona, just 30 inches from two lanes of traffic travelling at 65+ mph. Don't purchase this service!  Your life is not worth the few bucks you may save. 

[darlicious]

@walker1 

What.....only one workaround? Call forward my $15 plan phone # to my textnow #. I could set up text forwarding as well and leave that phone and Sim at home. Take my dual sim A3 with my unlucky $13 plan to use before departure and arrival home. Pre-order my €10/15gb/30 days Portuguese Sim card to be at my sisters place when I arrive. There's free wifi everywhere in Europe.....there was a seat sale the other day on Air France via Paris to Lisbon return to Vancouver under $450 all in. Easy to drink your airfare at that price!

[walker1]

@darlicious 

Correction:.  It's a phone service for cheap globe trotters, like us. If you figure out a way to use a carrying balance to purchase a plane ticket, be sure to let us know.

Be sure to bring two tin cans and a string, so you and your sister can communicate, while there. lol    Since PM won't work without all those workarounds, you love so much.  lol

[darlicious]

@walker1 

Lol....it's precisely this cheap mobile service that will enable this users next globetrotting adventure....now at three for free that's saving $2100/year over what we used to pay freedom, fido and telus. Lisbon, Figuera de la Foz, Porto and Madeira is up next.....🍷🫒🧀🇵🇹

[darlicious]

@DAW 

Unfortunately public mobile could be more specific in the small print of their Add ons page or go one step further and put an explicit warning beside any and all US Roaming add ons that have a talk feature and only charge a nominal fee. By not explaining to customers in a clear and concise way using plain language public mobile contributes to the misunderstanding by customers using 10 day US Roaming add ons on why they may or may not be able to connect to a network to send or recieve voice calls.

While there are now 3 informative warnings regarding the the decommissioning of the 3G networks in the US (specifically Public Mobile's roaming partners AT&T and T-Mobile) on the Add ons page they do not explain well enough in layman's terms or plain language for the average user to understand the effect this will have on pm customer's voice services or the "talk" feature of their US Roaming add ons or bundles. Under the category header appears...

US Roaming6

10 day packages

Important: Important: As of February 22nd, 2022, United States (U.S.) carriers have started turning down certain 3G/HSPA networks. As a result, customers using U.S. roaming add-ons will be impacted by differences in coverage or service quality (including 9-1-1 calls) when roaming in the U.S. Customers may also experience changes to services such as welcome messages, voicemail notifications, usage notifications for voice, notifications when trying to make an international call, interactive voice responses (IVR), as well as the ability to set up voicemail while in the U.S. This shutdown will not impact your service in Canada.

Further down the page under the US Roaming Data header appears....and why have the warning under Data rather than Talk add ons further confuses the customer?!!

U.S. Data Only

10 day packages

Important: As of February 22nd, 2022, some United States (U.S) carriers will begin turning down certain 3G/HSPA networks in the U.S. As a result, some customers using U.S. roaming add-ons may be impacted by differences in coverage or service quality (including 9-1-1 calls) when roaming in the U.S. This shutdown will not impact your service in Canada.

And finally much further down the page under "Terms and Conditions" and footnote "6"....

Terms and conditions 

6 Talk, text and data services refer to services offered while connected to the Telus/Public Mobile network. For service when not connected to the Telus/Public Mobile network, a roaming package must be purchased. Calls must originate from Canada to the US.

Important: As of February 22nd, 2022, United States (U.S.) carriers have started turning down certain 3G/HSPA networks. As a result, customers using U.S. roaming add-ons will be impacted by differences in coverage or service quality (including 9-1-1 calls) when roaming in the U.S. Customers may also experience changes to services such as welcome messages, voicemail notifications, usage notifications for voice, notifications when trying to make an international call, interactive voice responses (IVR), as well as the ability to set up voicemail while in the U.S. This shutdown will not impact your service in Canada.

Nowhere in these warnings does pm explain to customers that the primary service affected by the shutdown of the 3G networks in the US is their voice services or the talk feature of the US Roaming add ons and bundles. Nor do they explain (that often comes as a surprise to customers) that Public Mobile's voice services are solely delivered on the 3G network in Canada thus in the US they have no voice services on the 3G network as its now virtually nonexistent with both AT&T having completed its shutdown and T-Mobile nearly there with its decommissioning scheduled to be completed by year's end.

Additionally which was a pleasant surprise.....it became known that T-Mobile had bucked the trend and maintained its 2G network since the decommissioning phase of the 2G networks by other US carriers and would continue to offer voice services to its customers with devices not  VoLTE capable if they are within 2G network coverage for the time being and as a result T-Mobile could also extend voice service coverage to its roaming partnerships international customers while roaming in the US. Luckily for us that included Public Mobile the only prepaid provider able to offer US Roaming albeit with limited YMMV voice services but a voip provider like textnow is an easy workaround if the 2G network is unavailable or if you choose only US Roaming data add ons which work perfectly fine on the 4G LTE networks.

Otherwise US Roaming with a Canadian provider is $12 to $14 a day capped between $220 and $280 per month with the exception of Videotron at $10/day capped at $100. Fizz offers data only. Eastlink, Freedom and Shaw offer reasonable daily rates in addition to your bundled plans. Or month over month plans with limited opt out lock outs run about $105/month=$1260/year.

More info on US Roaming add ons, coverage maps and other helpful links....

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Get-Support/US-Roaming-Add-ons-Decommissioning-of-US-...

[walker1]

Heck, even Chatr's cheapest prepaid plans include receiving text messages while traveling globally.

It's better than nothing, if you need to receive a 2FA text for banking or other important accounts and such, while away from home.

Just saying.

[HALIMACS]

100% agree @DAW 

PM's got to up the ante with the service outside of Canada (especially now that traveling is returning to some level of 'normal')

Based on the experiences I've heard from many, if I needed to spend time in the US, I'd likely utilize a service provider fully capable of utilizing the service down there or purchase a US sim card for a limited time use while traveling.

[walker1]

Yup, it's not always a good idea to go the cheap route for some things in life.  

Too bad you had to find out the hard way, but thank goodness you both survived that ordeal.   

Let's face it, it's a cheap phone service for people who live and travel through out Canada and not for globe trotters.