Province-wide, Canada-wide and Long Distance Add-ons

[neilselden]

Hi,

I'm hoping one of our moderators can sticky this thread.... @Shazia_K, how about it?  🙂

@ute1978 posted a great chart explaining how Provice-wide calling works.  I'm re-posting it here, and below, will describe how it works...

There is a lot of confusion about Province wide calling, but I can summarize it here:

1. When in your province:
   1. All calls made within your province are free
   2. All calls received from anywhere are free
   3. Any calls made to anywhere outside your province require a long distance add on
2. When outside your province
   1. Calls made to whichever province you are in are free
   2. You wil not receive calls unless you have a long distance add on
      1. You will be charged for each minute of incoming call

WIth Canada-wide calling:

1. any call that you make within Canada is free
2. any call that you receive from anywhere while you are in Canada is free
3. if you want to call International, you will need to buy the International long distance add-on
   1. If you want to call the US only, you need one of:
      1. US/Canada Long distance add on
      2. International add on
      3. Some VoIP solution like Fongo, Hangouts Dialer, etc... This would use your PM data connection to route calls

Hope this helps our new members understand how it all works.

Cheers,

Neil

[RLBL]

Here is a question I have not seen tackled (please forgive me if this has been answered):

This thread is about calling in or out of province, but what about SMS texting? I do not believe that texting is data, so I wonder if I can text internationally, but only if I am in my home province.

Does anyone know (forgive me if my question turns out to be ignorant)

[Pasharu]

thanks for clearing it all up!

[srlawren]

Hi @Nebula,

The answers are:
1) yes
2) no
3) yes
4) no, provided you do hang up before their voicemail picks up

[Nebula]

Questions:

Suppose I have the long distance add on and I am in BC (outside of my home province of AB).

1. If I receive a call originating from BC, will it use up my LD minutes?
2. If I call a BC number, will it use up my LD minutes?
3. Will a 5 second call count as 1 min?
4. What happens if I call someone and they never pick up and doesn't go to voicemail, will that use up my LD minutes?

Thanks!

[Rockdaddy22]

Glad to hear that 🙂

[shrimpdude]

I've been wondering about a few things that are cleared up here. This is tremendously helpful, thank you!

[RLBL]

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@prasprime wrote:

@neilselden Consider, I am out of province with no add-on. Do the caller can leave a voice mail, If I can't receive phone call. 

Thans 

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Something I am going to try:

When the phone is busy oro unasered, forward to vmail (as it is now)

when not reachable, forward to fongo which can reach me across Canada.

[neilselden]

Hi,

As long as your calls are being forwarded to yoru voicemail in cases of no answer, busy, out of service.. then yes.  The caller will be able to leave a voicemail.

Then, you could the Hangouts dialer to call your voicemail, which would use your data connection.  As you may know, data service is nationwide - you can use your data plan anywhere in Canada as long as you have MB left to consume.

Hope this helps,

Neil

[prasprime]

@neilselden Consider, I am out of province with no add-on. Do the caller can leave a voice mail, If I can't receive phone call. 

Thans 

[Tvisforme]

It would be long distance for you, because you are calling to their area code and not their physical location (at least, that is how the system sees it).

[bbdata]

Not sure if this question has come up before:

What if someone from out of province is visiting your home province and you decide to call them?

Will it still be considered long distance minutes because their phone number is from out of province? even though they are physically in the same province as you?

[Tvisforme]

Thank you for providing this information, it was helpful when assessing Public before I ported out of my previous provider.

[neilselden]

@ute1978,

Thanks for the updated graphic!

Cheers,

Neil

[barabasy]

Thanks. It is all clear now.

[ute1978]

@barabasy I changed the graphic. Better now? 😉

@neilselden Could you please exchange the initial graphic in your post? Thanks.

 

[barabasy]

Hello,

I looked at the wonderful diagram made by @ute1978 and I cannot say for sure if an outgoing call to a different province will be charged to the long distance add-on minutes if I am in my own province?

Thanks.

[WearySky]

@RLBL - I haven't seen any confirmation from PM staffers about that, in fact the assumption around here seems to be that PM doesn't have any kind of exception for the Ottawa/Gatineau region (based on this thread asking that PM come up with a solution, any way).  Unless somebody from PM can say otherwise (@Mary_M et al, any feedback?) all the regular long distance rules should apply, per the original post.  

[RLBL]

On another forum (DSLreports to be exact) a PM customer in Ottawa has asserted that calling to (or receiving calls while in) Hull-Gatineau from Ottawa is considered local and works. What was unclear from the post were area codes.  Can anyone answer these with certanty? (my apologies but I have to have my ducks lined up properly or my wife will have my head!)

- if I am in Ontario and I call someone in Hull-Gatineau and they have a 613 number will the call go through (I hope yes)?

- If I am in Ontario and I call someone in Hull-Gatineau and they have a 819 number will it go through (I assume maybe not)?

- If I am in Hull-Gatineau and I call someone in Hull-Gatineau and they have a 613 number will it go through (I assume it should)?

- If I am in Hull-Gatineau and I call someone in Hull-Gatineau and they have a 819 number will it go through (I assume it should)?

- (The big one) If I am in Hull-Gatineau and someone calls me on my 613 number, will my phone ring?

[srlawren]

@RLBL you assume correctly.  

[RLBL]

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@WearySky wrote:

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@RLBL wrote:

Side question (reading thuogh the thread was not clear to me)

If I want to receive a call, I cannot without a LD add-on... but the 200 minute addon says US. Is Canada covered by that, or would I need the 400 minute for $15 (either is still a great deal)

As stated if I leave the province I can simply use hangouts, but if I am out of province and wish to receive calls (it is rare but happens) I need to have thats cenario covered as well.

Thanks

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Yes, Canadian long distance is included in both of the long distance add-ons.

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Thanks

I also assume that if I hav the add-on and I find myself Out of Province, that my phone will ring if someone calls me (i.e. it is not outgoing only). 

[s2scotty]

The technical reason for this is simple radio-frequency (RF) signal propagation. In the "close proximity" of the Canada side towers and the USA side towers, it is very often the case that the "preferred" tower (best signal-to-noise ratio) happens to be the "other guy's" tower. So, while standing in Canada and making a call, the algorythm in your phone wants to "prefer" a USA tower or vise versa.

It was easier for the carriers and better for the subscriber to simply allow each other's towers to be local for billing purposes for these close proximity tower coverage areas.

/S

[WearySky]

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@RLBL wrote:

Side question (reading thuogh the thread was not clear to me)

If I want to receive a call, I cannot without a LD add-on... but the 200 minute addon says US. Is Canada covered by that, or would I need the 400 minute for $15 (either is still a great deal)

As stated if I leave the province I can simply use hangouts, but if I am out of province and wish to receive calls (it is rare but happens) I need to have thats cenario covered as well.

Thanks

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Yes, Canadian long distance is included in both of the long distance add-ons.

[RLBL]

Side question (reading thuogh the thread was not clear to me)

If I want to receive a call, I cannot without a LD add-on... but the 200 minute addon says US. Is Canada covered by that, or would I need the 400 minute for $15 (either is still a great deal)

As stated if I leave the province I can simply use hangouts, but if I am out of province and wish to receive calls (it is rare but happens) I need to have thats cenario covered as well.

Thanks

[WearySky]

@RLBL yup, data and texting will work Canada-wide.

[RLBL]

This may be a very silly question:

If I signup for a province wide plan, is the data Canada Wide (e.g. no roaming). If that is the case I will simply use Fongo/Hangouts

[Netrunner]

@kav2001c Done.

[kav2001c]

@Netrunner click here to upvote, we are all making a push for this now to allow Ottawa - Gatineau local calling under provincial long distance plans

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Public-Lab/Ottawa-ON-Gatineau-PQ/idi-p/83112

[kav2001c]

@Tiffenyg there are 14 area codes you can dial for free with a Hamilton phone number

226, 249, 289, 343, 365, 416, 437, 519, 548, 613, 647, 705, 807, 905

[kav2001c]

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@WearySky wrote:

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@kav2001c wrote:

@WearySky but that IS what Telus / Bell do

If you had an account with 100 US LD minutes you can NOT use them to call your friend in BC

Strange but true 

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I guess Telus/Bell must offer Canada-only LD minutes then?  That seems like crazypantsedness to me, but then I suppose I shouldn't really be THAT surprised.

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They offer both which makes it even more confusing @WearySky

eg Canada wide long distance only 

US wide long distance only OR US wide long distance + Canada wide

It gets even more confusing for people in certain areas (eg Bell/Telus give FREE US ROAMING to persons along Windsor to Michingan corridor)

Try to wrap your head around that

Person lives in Niagara, goes across border gets huge bill

Person lives in Windsor goes across border no extra charges

[kav2001c]

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@daredogg wrote:

@Netrunner Yes, it's considered long distance, because you're calling out of province. Maybe there's a special circumstance with Ottawa / Gatineau that it's considered the same region, but someone who lives in the area would have to confirm.

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@daredogg it actually is a local call. So even with no long distance add on a person in Ottawa can still call Gatineau PQ  (EDIT - local calling area, it can NOT be dialed from Public for some odd reason, even with a Provincial long distance plan)

A bit confusing since Public's offering is a long distance plan province wide so now Ottawa can dial places hundreds of kilometres away for free, but are unable to call walking distance across a bridge 

There were a few Public Ideas on this and they really should let people with ON plans (or Ottawa numbers at least) be allowed to call Gatineau & vice versa for those on Gatineau side to call Ottawa

LOTS of people commute daily across this border