The new $13 plan is truely amazing!

[bridonca]

On it's face, 100 minutes, unlimited pictures and texts, and the bonus 250 megs of data are impressive, but the data is what makes things interesting.  With Fongo, 250 megs gets you around 500 minutes of calling.  You want to make calls with your Public Mobile number on the caller ID?  Use Google Hangouts Dialer.  Uses the same bandwidth as Fongo!  Through wifi, and the calls are unlimited!

[CalgaryBen]

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@jor123 wrote:

Hangouts Dialer is deprecated now? 

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In later/current versions of Hangouts, the dialer is integrated/unified into the single app.  But to enable outbound Caller ID, an earlier Hangouts needs to be installed, hence possibly needing the separate Dialer app which would now be redundant/unnecessary.

[sandpublic]

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@jor123 wrote:

Hangouts Dialer is deprecated now? 

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Still works!

[jor123]

Hangouts Dialer is deprecated now? 

[CalgaryBen]

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@MilkMan2 wrote:

How did you verify in Hangouts with a Canadian number? It seems to want an American number.

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From Chrome (assuming you're logged in with your Google Account): Google Apps --> Account --> Personal Info --> Contact Info --> Phone.  Is your cell phone number entered here?  If not, add it here, and if you're able to verify it, do so (mine's already verified, so I'm not sure what options show up if you haven't verified).  Also, I seem to recall it's a real pain if you have more than 1 phone number here, so if possible, ensure it's just your cell number here.

Then, if you want your number to show up in an outbound Hangouts call, you'll have to enable Outbound Caller ID from an old version of Hangouts (I've tested and confirmed 24.0.180704873 works) on an Android device.  You can find the .apk file on many repositories online.

Launch Hangouts (and log in if required), then:

• Hamburger menu --> Settings --> tap on your Google ID/Account --> Account/Verified phone number(s) --> add your number --> NEXT
• You'll receive an SMS from short-code 22000 with a 4-digit Google verification code on your phone.  Enter this in Hangouts.
• Settings --> Google Account -> Account / Outbound caller ID -> Enable --> ENABLE --> GOT IT!

You might need to also download a version of Hangouts Dialer for this to work.  I didn't find version matters, but since it's a deprecated app, you'll need to find the .apk for it somewhere such as https://hangouts-dialer.en.uptodown.com/android/download

HTH...

[MilkMan2]

How did you verify in Hangouts with a Canadian number? It seems to want an American number.

[texwood]

I'd use this plan just for Whatapp.  

[Anonymous]

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@rc0 wrote:

Solid point, I'd dismissed the promo because I didn't think I could use it in time, but porting yesterday was super easy. The promo would allow us to cut her over now and pay for the balance she'd leave behind. Thanks!

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However you wanna see the economics of it. 🙂

[rc0]

Solid point, I'd dismissed the promo because I didn't think I could use it in time, but porting yesterday was super easy. The promo would allow us to cut her over now and pay for the balance she'd leave behind. Thanks!

[CalgaryBen]

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@srlawren wrote:

@bridonca I guess using Hangouts for all your outbound calls, you could leave your 100 mins for answering your incoming calls.  Kind of novel approach!

PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

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The other cool thing about using Hangouts (with Outbound Caller ID enabled) is that you can call the voicemail access number (###-580-4001) in Hangouts and it will treat you as if you called using the native phone (so if you've turned off the need to enter your passcode for VM, for example, you'll immediately be dropped into the message menu).  And of course, it saves minutes otherwise consumed during VM retrieval if done using the voice plan.

A bit of a hack is that if someone calls you and you're running low on minutes (consumed most of your metered minutes) and you need to conserve them, you could let the caller go to VM (no consumption of minutes), you can retrieve the VM using Hangouts (if desired), and call the person back via Hangouts.

Anyone know what happens when you run out of minutes, and someone calls you?  (i.e. do they get a fast busy, silence/drop, VM, or something else?).  If not, I'll have to give this a try on one of my $10/50 min lines when it's near the end of the cycle...

[Anonymous]

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@rc0 wrote:

Does anyone know if this plan will be around for at least a few more weeks? I just ported myself over yesterday from Petro-Canada Mobility, and I will move my wife's service once her month comes up early April. But I don't want to miss the boat. 

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 @rc0 

You could always set up a new activation and then when ready port the number over. Don't forget the other referral promo until this Monday of $25 for both of you. You refer her to here. 🙂

[sandpublic]

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@rc0 wrote:

Does anyone know if this plan will be around for at least a few more weeks? I just ported myself over yesterday from Petro-Canada Mobility, and I will move my wife's service once her month comes up early April. But I don't want to miss the boat. 

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My guess is that it will still be available. Judging from the popularity of this plain I suspect that PM will make it a regular offering.

[rc0]

Does anyone know if this plan will be around for at least a few more weeks? I just ported myself over yesterday from Petro-Canada Mobility, and I will move my wife's service once her month comes up early April. But I don't want to miss the boat. 

[CalgaryBen]

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@srlawren wrote:

@CalgaryBen sounds like there's still no Holy Grail eh?  TextNow sounds interesting, I should check it out.  Maybe one day they'll add Canadian number portability? 

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All the individual pieces to make up the Holy Grail are there, but just not unified into a single app/solution!  For people less picky than myself, it may already exist!  TextNow works well (plus free voice, SMS, and MMS), but it also consumes a lot of data, so that becomes a negative strike (not sure if its the codec, or the abundance of ads).

For a 1 minute test call I made, Fongo used 0.7 MB, Hangouts used 1.4 MB, while TextNow used 6.5 MB of cellular data.  So Fongo is a clear winner.  Only knock against Fongo is the paid SMS add-ons, and lack of MMS (not a huge deal-breaker in the context of this $15 ($13) plan though, with unlimited SMS/MMS).  The Fongo vs. Hangouts results could explain duplex issues... I haven't used either for real life scenarios, so can't speak to the overall reliability... but from my tests, I couldn't differentiate audio quality on any of the apps with an actual voice call.

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@will13am wrote:

I am so used to it, I don't know what to do if google takes hangouts away from me.  Maybe I will have to do something dramatic like switch to iOS!  Seriously, the app just works.

👍  I certainly had to do something dramatic to get Hangouts' Outbound Caller ID working on iOS (for whatever reason you can't verify your number from the iOS app)... had to install Hangouts 24.0 on an Android device (used an emulator on Windows), set things up in there and perform number verification (even though mine was already "verified"), and only then was I able to have Outbound Caller ID actually work on iOS.  But this makes me happy!  And Hangouts handles WiFi <--> Cell Data handoffs marvelously.  So it's an excellent fit.

Credit to @computergeek541 in this post for mentioning Hangouts 24 and reinforcing this detail that I've also read on the Hangouts section of the Google Product Forums.  Verifying my number from Hangouts 24 seems to have enabled some invisible flag to truly allow Caller ID to show up.  I'd tried verifying my number previously on Hangouts 27 on Android, and despite it showing as "verified" and enabled, it's never actually appeared on the called party's end.

[bridonca]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@srlawren wrote:

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PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

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Earlier, people were saying that outgoing call display wasn't working on Hangouts.  That wasn't my experience.  It did give some strange error messages if the outgong number display was already enabled about number not being verified or something like that even though it was. 

I do remember reverifying the number, yet hangouts would still not let me adjust the setting to turn outgoing phone number display back on.  However, what I will say is that I believe that the phone number absolutely did still get transmitted, but you couldn't just turn the furture on or off.

The reason I knew that is because when I was calling a long ditsance calling service access number, they base your access completely on your the call display information.  This long distance company still knew it was me, despite the call display function reportedly being "broken". 

This is all based on my memory, so it might not be exactly what happend, but rather just how I recall it.

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I would guess if you already had the feature working on previous updates, and you had caller ID running, when you got the lastest update, around 10 months ago to last month, hangouts could not change the status of the caller ID.  If you already had it enabled, it stayed enabled, if you had to re verify, which I often did, it would not work.  It was only last month that google provided a hangouts dialer that had the caller ID work properly.

For me, it was a good idea at the time.  I had a FIDO voice only plan I was paying $15 a month for, that I had on a flip phone, and a data only plan on my smart phone.  with Hangouts, I could use my smart phone to make voice calls through data, and the reciever on the other end would be none the wiser. 

[will13am]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@will13am wrote:

I have nothing but good things to say about hangouts for voice quality.  I hope google doesn't shelve it. 

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@will13am will be interesting to see what happens with it.  They seem to be transitioning Hangouts into a business-oriented tool and shying away from it for personal use.  I suspect they want to move us all to RCS for messaging (since theyhave also sunsetted Allo just the other day (yesterday, in fact, I think) along with Duo for video chatting.  If they would only offer Google Fi here this would probably tie in the Hangouts Dialer functionality and that's where it will persist beyond Hangouts' demise.  

@bridonca thanks for the Fongo feedback.  I may give it another kick at the can soon.

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I am so used to it, I don't know what to do if google takes hangouts away from me.  Maybe I will have to do something dramatic like switch to iOS!  Seriously, the app just works.  A good friend is travelling through the EU and he found out that his EE service that was purchased in the UK only provides free roaming data but not calling.  We chat on hangouts and call quality is identical to a phone call. 

[computergeek541]

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@srlawren wrote:

---

PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

---

Earlier, people were saying that outgoing call display wasn't working on Hangouts.  That wasn't my experience.  It did give some strange error messages if the outgong number display was already enabled about number not being verified or something like that even though it was. 

I do remember reverifying the number, yet hangouts would still not let me adjust the setting to turn outgoing phone number display back on.  However, what I will say is that I believe that the phone number absolutely did still get transmitted, but you couldn't just turn the furture on or off.

The reason I knew that is because when I was calling a long ditsance calling service access number, they base your access completely on your the call display information.  This long distance company still knew it was me, despite the call display function reportedly being "broken". 

This is all based on my memory, so it might not be exactly what happend, but rather just how I recall it.

[srlawren]

@CalgaryBen sounds like there's still no Holy Grail eh?  TextNow sounds interesting, I should check it out.  Maybe one day they'll add Canadian number portability? 

[srlawren]

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@will13am wrote:

I have nothing but good things to say about hangouts for voice quality.  I hope google doesn't shelve it. 

---

@will13am will be interesting to see what happens with it.  They seem to be transitioning Hangouts into a business-oriented tool and shying away from it for personal use.  I suspect they want to move us all to RCS for messaging (since theyhave also sunsetted Allo just the other day (yesterday, in fact, I think) along with Duo for video chatting.  If they would only offer Google Fi here this would probably tie in the Hangouts Dialer functionality and that's where it will persist beyond Hangouts' demise.  

@bridonca thanks for the Fongo feedback.  I may give it another kick at the can soon.

[CalgaryBen]

Random thoughts...

(sigh) I wish the iOS version of Hangouts would support outbound Caller ID!  Still says disabled for "security reasons"...   EDIT: Figured out how to enable it... had to install Hangouts 24.0 (not latest version) on an Android device, verify my phone number there (even though my number has already been verified on later versions at some point), and then I was able to dial out on my iOS version of Hangouts with my Caller ID!

I liked Fongo for what it achieves, but it does not do WiFi <--> Cell Data handoffs (calls get dropped), and the folks on the support forum suggest it could be put on the wish list, but also conveyed that nobody should hold their breath for new features.  For me that would be a deal-breaker (use case... you're on a phone call while on the road, get home, walk into your house, and the call gets dropped as you switch to WiFi).  The other thing that sucks is Fongo's ~$25 to port a number in or out (was considering it as a way to have a phone inside my phone, so I wouldn't have to carry around 2 phones as I do now).

TextNow is a great compromise (great sound quality and it does do WiFi <--> Cell Data handoffs), but not sure if it's a heavy user of data.  It's full of ads (which would be a waste of data), which I'd happy pay to remove ($39.99/yr, but not sure if that's USD or CAD).  Unfortunately they don't do porting of Canadian numbers (although they do offer Canadian area codes if you're willing to take a new number), so this made it a deal-breaker for my use (needed to port a business number).  TextNow does do MMS however, whereas Fongo does not.

[will13am]

I am a very heavy hangouts user, both for messaging and calls.  Since I use the google account instead of a phone number, I was not aware that the dialer was not doing caller ID properly.  I also use google voice with the phone dialer for making long distance calls.  That has always worked.  I have nothing but good things to say about hangouts for voice quality.  I hope google doesn't shelve it. 

[bridonca]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@bridonca wrote:

On it's face, 100 minutes, unlimited pictures and texts, and the bonus 250 megs of data are impressive, but the data is what makes things interesting.  With Fongo, 250 megs gets you around 500 minutes of calling.  You want to make calls with your Public Mobile number on the caller ID?  Use Google Hangouts Dialer.  Uses the same bandwidth as Fongo!  Through wifi, and the calls are unlimited!

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@bridonca I guess using Hangouts for all your outbound calls, you could leave your 100 mins for answering your incoming calls.  Kind of novel approach!

Have you used Fongo a lot?  Were you able to dial in the settings so that the quality was good?  I've not spent a lot of time on it but have issues with dropouts in the audio, and full duples seems to be problematic when both people are speaking at the same time.  I'd be curious to hear if you've had better results.

PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

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The LTE is the secret sauce.  If got a good signal, I have no issues with Fongo on Public Mobile LTE.   I notice Fongo works better on newer phones.   With my LG G6, I notice no problems in quality at all.

If you are getting an echo effect, try a headset.  Sometimes Fongo cannot use the phone's echo cancelling algorithm, and you are getting feedback from your phone.  I have had that issue with older phones, not with the LG G6.  I am not sure if it is Fongo that is updated, or the phones are better

Google finally updated their hangouts dialer so the caller ID bug is gone.  It is even better, I can use any device I have tied to my gmail account, and it will use my cell phone caller ID when making hangouts calls.

[stonechucker]

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@srlawren wrote:

---

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Thanks @Luddite. That's kind of the conclusion I came to as well, when I was considering going data-only.  I think that the holy grail of customer flexibility would be to port your number into Fongo or another VoIP provider and then going data-only.  Then you could pick any carrier that suited your needs at the time, easily travel internationally needing only a data-only SIM at your destination, where people can text and call you just like you're at home.  But my limited testing quickly shyed me away from that idea. I don't think we're there yet, but one day!!

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@srlawren, almost did that myself before joining Public Mobile.  I still have my VoIP.ms account setup, but I've not actually used it in over a year.  A data-only plan still isn't priced right for me without having to jump through hoops to get the really good deals on them.

[srlawren]

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@Luddite wrote:

My experience with Fongo has been that quality improves with increasing distance; no idea why but makes it great for calling across/between countries. Full duplex is missing now and then. Given that the new $25/plan is so reasonable, I would not use Fongo as my only phone connection.

---

Thanks @Luddite. That's kind of the conclusion I came to as well, when I was considering going data-only.  I think that the holy grail of customer flexibility would be to port your number into Fongo or another VoIP provider and then going data-only.  Then you could pick any carrier that suited your needs at the time, easily travel internationally needing only a data-only SIM at your destination, where people can text and call you just like you're at home.  But my limited testing quickly shyed me away from that idea. I don't think we're there yet, but one day!!

[Luddite]

My experience with Fongo has been that quality improves with increasing distance; no idea why but makes it great for calling across/between countries. Full duplex is missing now and then. Given that the new $25/plan is so reasonable, I would not use Fongo as my only phone connection.

[sandpublic]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@bridonca wrote:

On it's face, 100 minutes, unlimited pictures and texts, and the bonus 250 megs of data are impressive, but the data is what makes things interesting.  With Fongo, 250 megs gets you around 500 minutes of calling.  You want to make calls with your Public Mobile number on the caller ID?  Use Google Hangouts Dialer.  Uses the same bandwidth as Fongo!  Through wifi, and the calls are unlimited!

---

@bridonca I guess using Hangouts for all your outbound calls, you could leave your 100 mins for answering your incoming calls.  Kind of novel approach!

Have you used Fongo a lot?  Were you able to dial in the settings so that the quality was good?  I've not spent a lot of time on it but have issues with dropouts in the audio, and full duples seems to be problematic when both people are speaking at the same time.  I'd be curious to hear if you've had better results.

PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

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@srlawren, I can confirm that the outbound caller ID works now without any issues.

[srlawren]

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@bridonca wrote:

On it's face, 100 minutes, unlimited pictures and texts, and the bonus 250 megs of data are impressive, but the data is what makes things interesting.  With Fongo, 250 megs gets you around 500 minutes of calling.  You want to make calls with your Public Mobile number on the caller ID?  Use Google Hangouts Dialer.  Uses the same bandwidth as Fongo!  Through wifi, and the calls are unlimited!

---

@bridonca I guess using Hangouts for all your outbound calls, you could leave your 100 mins for answering your incoming calls.  Kind of novel approach!

Have you used Fongo a lot?  Were you able to dial in the settings so that the quality was good?  I've not spent a lot of time on it but have issues with dropouts in the audio, and full duples seems to be problematic when both people are speaking at the same time.  I'd be curious to hear if you've had better results.

PS I'm not sure what the status of Hangouts dialer is currently, but I now for a while the outbound caller ID wasn't working.  I think it was @computergeek541 that told me about that.  It might have been a temp issue though.

[sandpublic]

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@bridonca wrote:

On it's face, 100 minutes, unlimited pictures and texts, and the bonus 250 megs of data are impressive, but the data is what makes things interesting.  With Fongo, 250 megs gets you around 500 minutes of calling.  You want to make calls with your Public Mobile number on the caller ID?  Use Google Hangouts Dialer.  Uses the same bandwidth as Fongo!  Through wifi, and the calls are unlimited!

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@bridonca, I agree this is a great plan primarly for families looking for a plan for their younger kids.