Changing phone number city designation, so local callers do not need to dial +1

[Quetron]

Hello,

I have a 604-615-xxxx number ported over from Rogers that was obtained in Abbotsford, BC. I've since moved to Langley (one town over, also 604) and received comments from friends and family that dialing my number from Langley will give them a pre-recorded message saying the number cannot be completed as dialed. Once they put the +1 before the number, it works fine.

I found other posts on this forum and did a bit more research and found that Abbotsford is technically long distance from Langley, as Langley is included in the Greater Vancouver area of phone numbers, whereas Abbotsford is part of the Fraser Valley designation.

I would love to tell people to just put the +1 in front of my number when calling, but this is rather annoying. Additionally, some people that call me from a landline actually still get charged for long distance and are using up their limited long distance numbers by dialing with the +1 before my number.

Is there any way to have my number re-zoned to Vancouver without changing the number itself?

[WoozyPolarBear]

This just goes to show how the concept of in-country long distance calling is so incredibly outdated. I'm sure back 50 years ago Abbotsford was considered reasonably far away from Vancouver that many people didn't really commute between the two cities. However in 2021, Abbotsford is basically a suburb city of Vancouver, and MANY people commute from Abbotsford to Vancouver. It's about time that the CRTC mandates all phone providers to treat any call within Canada as local/non-long distance.

[Quetron]

Thank you for the answer. That's a great alternative, I will look into it. Thanks!

[Nezgar]

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@Quetron wrote:

Is there any way to have my number re-zoned to Vancouver without changing the number itself?

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Normally you would have to change your number with Public Mobile to a prefix associated to the local area of your callers.

If you're really attached to your number, you could sign up for a freephoneline.ca or fongo mobile account and get a phone number in the Vancouver/Richmond/NewWest area, and forward it to any other number in Canada including your Abbotsford number. Then you can tell your lower mainland callers to all your "alternate local" number to avoid long distance charges/warnings.

[computergeek541 · Accepted solution]

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@Quetron wrote:

rIs there any way to have my number re-zoned to Vancouver without changing the number itself?

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Sorry, but no, this cannot be done. If they were to allow this (which they won't), there wouldn't be any way to know which city someone is calling. That phone number will always be an Abbotsford number.