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Vancity1 · ‎10-01-2018

I’m currently a speakout wireless customer. Would like to try out Public

Can I port my current phone number to Public? I’ve tried setting up an account and it asks for my number but won’t recognize my current number. Have had it for almost 20 years and will only switch if I can use it

I see some people leaving Public mobile. What are the most common reasons people aren’t happy?

any hidden fees on top of the posted plan amounts? Assuming 911 fee? Tax?

Thanks in advance!

Salvo · ‎10-07-2018

When i came over to pm i went to walmart thay did all the work and helped with every thing !!!

A328 · ‎10-07-2018

I have switched back to public mobile (returning customer). I have had Fido 60 dollars 10 GB LTE plan with unlimited Canada. However I was hardly using data as mostly it is wifi. Also speed around where I live and inside building was 3G. I did not want to pay premium price for features I am not using. So I jumped back to PM. Porting took one minute. No issue whatsoever.

rimacrae · ‎10-07-2018

If you are sick of paying high rates for cell phone plans and data, absolutely check out Public Mobile. Great deals and no contracts. Walmart will even set it all up for you and cancel your current provider in one transaction. I kept putting it off because i was worried about trying to figure it out by myself. The young Walmart cell phone associate was very confident in his abilities, friendly and very helpful. He did the whole transaction for me with absolutly no issues. If you want to port over your current number they eill set up your Public's account first and then cancel your old plan .This ensured to port your current phone number over to Public Mobile. Ensure you have unlocked your phone before heading to Walmart. Take your cell phone unlock number and your current cell phone plan account number with you as you will need it for the set up. It was fairly fast and efficent. Well worth the $10.00 fee to do all this. Also, there are also alot of perks to moving to Public Mobile. If you set up automatic payments you get $2.00 off per month and if you refer people and they sign up you get money off/discounts for each new sign up. It is the perfect "plan" for me. Check it out and if you decide to go with it, add the name and phone number of the person who referred you. It is a win win for everyone! Take the leap...you will be greatful you did!

computergeek541 · ‎10-01-2018

@Vancity1 wrote:
I’m currently a speakout wireless customer. Would like to try out Public

Can I port my current phone number to Public? I’ve tried setting up an account and it asks for my number but won’t recognize my current number. Have had it for almost 20 years and will only switch if I can use it

I see some people leaving Public mobile. What are the most common reasons people aren’t happy?

any hidden fees on top of the posted plan amounts? Assuming 911 fee? Tax?

Thanks in advance!

No other fees, but taxes get added on top of the advertised prices, as it is at virtually any store or registered business.

A large part of people leaving Public Mobile has to do with the parent company's (Telus) desire to get people switched from prepaid to postpaid cell phone plans (more chance for upsells, contracts/tabs, overages, etc.).

As for some people not being happy with Public Mobile, I would imagine that most of the time, it has to do with delay in response time when something goes wrong. Usually, most customers' services work fine, but for some reason, Public Mobile does seem to have a number of strange system problems that cause services to stop working randomly and for activations to sometimes fail.

austinhuang · ‎10-01-2018

@Vancity1 wrote:
I’m currently a speakout wireless customer. Would like to try out Public

Can I port my current phone number to Public? I’ve tried setting up an account and it asks for my number but won’t recognize my current number. Have had it for almost 20 years and will only switch if I can use it

I see some people leaving Public mobile. What are the most common reasons people aren’t happy?

any hidden fees on top of the posted plan amounts? Assuming 911 fee? Tax?

Thanks in advance!

To answer your questions first:

Yes, but if there's problems it'll take a long time to fix. My port (Chatr > PM) took 3 hours.
To use PM, you acknowledge that support (especially for account-specific issue) is limited and you must be able to bear problems. Many people did not realize that and their phone could be left disconnected for >2 days in extreme cases.
Tax is extra. I think 911 fees are included by law?

A comparison:

It's cheaper. We all know that.
Speakout uses Rogers. PM uses Telus/Bell (Telus and Bell share networks, see their coverage maps).
Only use PM if you can bear with limited support and possibility of being disconnected. You also have to have self-control and make sure to manage your account well to avoid problems (Keeping credit card alive, pay your bills in advance, etc).
1 user mentioned that PM has less options than Speakout, see this thread. Despite his situation being not applicable to most people, I think you deserve getting informed.

I can provide you with my referral number so you get a $10 bonus. Shoot me a private message.

If this solves your question, please select my reply as Solution!

Calimero · ‎10-01-2018

Every number can be ported. PublicMobile has arrangements to transfer some numbers automatically. If yours is not transferable automatically you need to create an account with a new number, contact your old provider and ask them to allow your old number to be transfered, contact PublicMobile and ask for the transfer. It takes a bit longer than transfering from the big 3, but the rewards are worth it 🙂

The biggest advantage of PublicMobile is its low cost on 3G, which some find is a big disadvantage and run back to their old providers for 4G with tons of data when they deals come available. I have access to wifi pretty much anywhere, and leave the internet in my pocket when I don't so it works for me 🙂

As for your first question, yes you definitely should give them a try 🙂

Anonymous · ‎10-01-2018

@Vancity1 wrote:
And the number porting? Assuming I go buy a SIM card at the store today. It gives me its own number, I then chat with a moderator to put in a request for number transfer? And that will take 48hrs or more?

You can buy a SIM any time and put it in a drawer and activate it sometime in the future. There's no "chatting" with moderators here. When you're ready to move over then you go through the process of activating. It's kind of a strategy to just use a new number in PM and then when you're comfortable enough with it then you use the change your number function to bring your original number over. It's at THAT time that the original service will stop.

hairbag1 · ‎10-01-2018

Ours porting took about 15mins, but I've read that others can take a few days. Not sure about Speakout though.

Vancity1 · ‎10-01-2018

And the number porting? Assuming I go buy a SIM card at the store today. It gives me its own number, I then chat with a moderator to put in a request for number transfer? And that will take 48hrs or more?

hairbag1 · ‎10-01-2018

Some folks find that they MUST HAVE a call center to call whenever they run into something they don't understand. There are still small glitches with PM so it can be frustrating if you're unwilling to work it out yourself with the aid of Simon (The Chatbot) or the Community assistance. It's recently been taking up to 48hrs or more for PM moderator support so that is a factor. Usually things work smooth during and after sign up and you'll generlly save a boatload of $$$. I find it's been a good investment as do many others. Good luck wherever you go.

stonechucker · ‎10-01-2018

@Vancity1, as with all prices for anything in Canada, taxes are extra, added at the time of payment.

Some people don't like that there is no 'voice' support, nor the current backlog of service response of 48-72 hours.

Please check out the Knowledge Base to research everything. All the answer to any question is there.

Edit: Just so you know, when there isn't a backlog, usual response times are within 12 hours.

Anonymous · ‎10-01-2018

@Vancity1 wrote:
I’m currently a speakout wireless customer. Would like to try out Public

Can I port my current phone number to Public? I’ve tried setting up an account and it asks for my number but won’t recognize my current number. Have had it for almost 20 years and will only switch if I can use it

I see some people leaving Public mobile. What are the most common reasons people aren’t happy?

any hidden fees on top of the posted plan amounts? Assuming 911 fee? Tax?

Thanks in advance!

No fees and surprises here.

It seems to me people leave for promotions primarily around data.

The account support delays here are atrocious. The support here on the forums is fantastic but the forum can't do anything about account issues. I've been here since mid-May and I haven't really needed account support so I don't care. Nor do I have critical need for a phone.

I don't know about your number problem so I'm going to stand over here 🙂

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