Canucks living abroad no longer Canadian?

[xCanuck]

It would be great if Canadians living abroad could have some way to sign up for this service! It is a terrible shame that Canadians who are living overseas for whatever reason cannot obtain a Canadian service like this. What about military personnel who have been stationed overseas for a long period of time, or missionaries or whatever, with the current policy it is almost impossible for any expat or whatever to take advantage of your service. Reminds me of that old TV commercial for Red Rose Tea, Only in Canada you say? PITTY!

Seriously though VOIP is 20/21st century product yet FPL is treating it as if it was old ma bell technology! I realize there may be a variety of reasons WHY you are doing it this way but have you considered the Canadians who probably need it MORE than the average Canadian living inside Canada.

Anyway a few ideas for you to consider ...

Why not allow Canadians living abroad to be able sign up using a form where they must supply a scanned copy of their passport etc? Make it an inbound only service for Canadians abroad etc.

Anyway I think it would be awesome to have this service somehow accessible to Canadians abroad.

Oh, and for those who might take offense to my nick xCanuck well I created it solely for FPL as it makes many of us who live abroad fell like we are no longer Canadians at all when we cannot signup for a service other Canadians CAN!

Anyway here's to hoping that a solution might be offered for ALL Canadians to take advantage of your great service:)

[seagame2001]

why didn't you try to ask someone in Canada that you know and sign up for you and give you the log in info that's all

Then again when you are now ISP won't allow Voip service you need to check out the info

[TheHardy]

Even though the admins (Steve/Kris) cannot explicitly say to violate the "terms of usage", it has been said several times on the forum that you can "use" valid Canadian address information (ie street and postal) to sign up for the service, and that the only caveat is that providing information other than your own kind of makes the E-9-1-1 more or less useless ...

Seagame2001 correctly points out that all you really need is someone with an existing Canadian phone number (not an FPL number, mind you!) to receive the "validation" call and provide you with the 3 digit code to complete your signup.

I am sure that there is someone on the forum that can do this for you (I cannot, as I only have my cellphone, and it is already associated with 2 accounts) should you wish to pursue this.

Of course, subject to the "terms of usage", you may be in 'violation' of some of those. But then again, use at your own risk, and "don't ask, don't tell".

[FONGO_steve]

xCanuck - your ideas have been passed along and will certainly be taken into consideration for future updates to the service!

[TheHardy]

xCanuck -- have you made any movement on this one way or the other, whether you are going to use a Canadian address and someone over here to "get" the authorization code for you or not?

If you do, I would be interested in your success rate of making/receiving calls.

Would you be generating the account mainly to PLACE calls from overseas back to Canada, or to RECEIVE calls from Canada/USA? Just curious.

Let us know!

[xCanuck]

Hardy,

Most expats have an outgoing VOIP plan one way or another. Whether they are using Google voice or one of the other many softphone apps out there or are paying for a flat rate long distance plan for North America. My comments here were not really geared toward myself. I was thinking more of the many other expats out there. I have many DID's some of which I have now for 10 years. I started using VOIP services back in early 2000 and then got assigned DID numbers in late 2000 I still have those DID's though they have been ported many times since

[seagame2001]

You complained cause you could not sign up freephoneline. Google Voice you still need a cellphone or homepone to verify the last step ask some one back in Canada create an account for you that's all

[TheHardy]

I think that the point that xCanuck was making was to see if there were a way that someone from OUTSIDE of Canada could apply for an FPL account; and the underlying verification.

IMHO, it is a valid point, but outside of what FPL currently has as its "mandate" or purpose. It would require there to be an alternate verification process other than the one that calls your designated landline/mobile with the verification code that you need to input online to create your account. Futhermore, as 911 service would not be an option abroad (May even be an issue if you are using an FPL account in the USA? Not sure!), and I suppose that there would have to be an OPT-OUT feature where the new signup user would have to explicitly 'click' (sign) to verify that they understand NON-provision of 911 service.

[xCanuck]

seagame2001,

You mistook my original post. I was not complaining or asking for myself at all. I already have many phones throughout Canada the USA/Mexico/Europe and so on. Since 2000 I have maintained 3 numbers in Canada/USA and UK. So for 11 years now certain people know exactly what number will reach my personal phone wherever I may be.

Personally I hate any form of soft phone I prefer the old hard line of going through a sip box and not relying on my pc or having to run an app on my pc 24/7. When I travel I take my ATA adapter with me and use it at 90% of the hotels I stay at. But that is me I'm a little more old fashioned than most. Many like or love skype, google voice and so on. Me I will pass on them thanks anyway.

Anyway my point was never that I wanted FPL service merely pointing out that there are MANY Canadians living abroad that would LOVE to have a service such as this. I know because I am constantly asked by other Canadians and Americans HOW I do it. Many I simply provide them with DID numbers at my wholesale cost, even though I have a huge amount of DID numbers inside my accounts it does not begin to even touch the amount of foreigners NEEDING or wanting a decent service similar to FPL.

I do think Gvoice is handy but only in regards to the incoming not the outgoing, most of the people who got DIDS from me add 2 separate Gvoice numbers onto those to cover 2 different areas of the US.

Do not get me wrong here, FPL is offering a great service for most people and should be commended for it, I was merely posing the question in regards to Canadians living abroad if they had or were thinking of possible solutions to assist them in obtaining a number. One such hurdle is the ability to turn OFF the e911 service for the expats within the FPL setup.

The other point is this.

The expat community is unique and word travels very fast within these communities. As an example I am living in China but have lived in Mexico and other countries, here in China I know a great many Canadians and everyone of them knows a Canadian living in another country. So if one finds what they consider to be a great product or service for expats word within the expat community would spread like wildfire. I would post it on the Chinese/HK and Mexico expat forums I knew about, others would repost for different expat communities and so on. ALL of these people are looking for cost effective ways of creating a reliable communication network for themselves. A great many of these Canadians would simply pay for the SIP service because they like me want some of the creature habits of home, like having a real phone to pickup to make and receive calls.

FPL has been around long enough that by any terms it would be considered reliable and stable, Gvoice is anything but reliable and stable, they buy Gizmo everyone starts assigning numbers to Gizmo then wham Google shuts down Gizmo. So AFTER Gvoice gets its crap together maybe they will be reliable but for now, FPL beats Gvoice in reliability/stability hands down!

[TheHardy]

xCanuck -- very well written post.

You hit the nail on the head with the way that you described it. I would strongly suggest, if you have not already done so, to forward THAT description of what you are seeking to FPL-Steve or FPL-Lauen for forwarding on to the powers that be. With the conciseness of the post, I am sure that someone in the marketing department can drool over this and find some way to incorporate it (perhaps they even have something along those lines on the drawing board already).

I feel, as an outsider, that being a DID provider would work well alongside being an established CLEC. Of course, it adds another layer of complexity, but as you correctly state, there seems to be a ready made market for this sort of thing.

Curious, as I usually am: What kind of costs are you looking at for say a single incoming Canadian number for your setup?