free long distance information

[3p4145]

Hello,
How do I know if the canadian long distance number I am trying to call is free or not (without using the online list)?
Am i correct in assuming:

1. If I call a number without a 1 in the prefix (405 222 2222 instead of dialing 1 405 222 2222) and if the call goes through its free..?
2. I have no balance in my account (no voucher money left), and If i can still call a number then I can assume its free??

Secondly:
If I don't have any money on my account, I cannot make any long distance calls unless I have a +ve balance or does FPL do post-paid type invoicing as well?

[FONGO_steve]

Hi 3p4145,

If you have no balance in your account and can call a number then it is free. If you have no balance and call a paid destination, a message will play and the call will disconnect.

Right now the only way to tell if a destination is free or not is to check it against our website - unfortunately dialing with or without a 1 won't make any difference in our system.

If you want to add money on your account we currently offer pre-paid long distance vouchers in $5, $20 and $50 denominations. You can view your balance at anytime by logging into your account. Auto-renewing of vouchers has also just become available.

Don't hesitate to let us know if there are any further questions.

[3p4145]

Thank you Steve )

[TheHardy]

Right now the only way to tell if a destination is free or not is to check it against our website

The only thing wrong with this, Steve, is that the website information is not up-to-date not necessarily accurate. There are several cities/areas that I can currently call for free that are not listed anywhere on the website. I do not know if this is intentional, or a temporary "testing thing" or whatnot.

Another small thing, the part of the website that lists the cities available could be updated and made to be more "user friendly" and intuitive.

Then again, seeing you ARE providing a free service, I should not really be complaining too much nor expecting too much either, for that matter!

[FONGO_steve]

Right now the only way to tell if a destination is free or not is to check it against our website

The only thing wrong with this, Steve, is that the website information is not up-to-date not necessarily accurate. There are several cities/areas that I can currently call for free that are not listed anywhere on the website. I do not know if this is intentional, or a temporary "testing thing" or whatnot.

Do you mind sending me a PM with a few of the cities you can call for free that aren't on the website?

[Jake]

Right now the only way to tell if a destination is free or not is to check it against our website

The only thing wrong with this, Steve, is that the website information is not up-to-date not necessarily accurate. There are several cities/areas that I can currently call for free that are not listed anywhere on the website. I do not know if this is intentional, or a temporary "testing thing" or whatnot.

Do you mind sending me a PM with a few of the cities you can call for free that aren't on the website?

Steve, using the list I put together from the freecallingguide (the one I posted about here > http://forum.freephoneline.ca/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2265 ) I used the data to construct a list of all the towns that we can (should be able to) call.
http://jasv.ca/fpl/towns.php

It reads your free calling page and checks to see if the name in my data is on your page. As you read down the list you will see a few towns listed that the script can't find on your page (there may be a few false positives due to accents on the letters). It will also show the NPA-NPXs of the town that we should be able to call.

I have no idea if the data is correct, or if the towns are 'big' enough to be called a town and listed on your page - so read this list with a pinch of salt.

[TheHardy]

Jake: fine job of the list, info taken from from CNAC, no doubt. I liked your other NPA-NXX listing as well, very handy, although the version I saw over the weekend was out of date (maybe you have updated it now). Anyways, thanks for the effort you have put into putting that together!

[Jake]

Jake: fine job of the list, info taken from from CNAC, no doubt. I liked your other NPA-NXX listing as well, very handy, although the version I saw over the weekend was out of date (maybe you have updated it now). Anyways, thanks for the effort you have put into putting that together!

Thanks Hardy.
All I did was grab the list of exchanges Fibernetics has from the Local Calling Guide http://www.localcallingguide.com/lca_pr ... p?ocn=464D then grabbed all the numbers from those pages. It takes a script a couple of minutes to grab all the pages, and I did run the update yesterday - so the main page (http://jasv.ca/fpl/) might be up to date more now. If you know of anything missing, let me know and I can add it in easily. I would like to keep it as complete as possible.

[TheHardy]

I envy script-writers. I am low tech, the last time I did a list using information like that, it was a few hours of cut and paste work! LOL. I guess that shows that I am just a truck driver and not a coder! hehe

[TheHardy]

Do you mind sending me a PM with a few of the cities you can call for free that aren't on the website?

Hey Steve, a quick follow up (I have already PM'd you). I am fiddling around today because I have far too much time on my hands, and on the softphone client, I clicked on "ABOUT" ... the pop-up there CORRECTLY shows Winnipeg and Halifax as cities you can call for free via FPL. This, however, is not reflected on the website. I find that rather ironic. Just another moot point to bring up!

[FONGO_steve]

Do you mind sending me a PM with a few of the cities you can call for free that aren't on the website?

Hey Steve, a quick follow up (I have already PM'd you). I am fiddling around today because I have far too much time on my hands, and on the softphone client, I clicked on "ABOUT" ... the pop-up there CORRECTLY shows Winnipeg and Halifax as cities you can call for free via FPL. This, however, is not reflected on the website. I find that rather ironic. Just another moot point to bring up!

Thanks for your PM and the suggestions you offered - I'll certainly pass those along to our creative team!

There is actually some free calling in the Winnipeg and Halifax regions, just we aren't currently able to offer DIDs in these regions. I'll make a note to get these areas confirmed and added to the free call list

[TheHardy]

Thanks for your PM and the suggestions you offered - I'll certainly pass those along to our creative team!

There is actually some free calling in the Winnipeg and Halifax regions, just we aren't currently able to offer DIDs in these regions. I'll make a note to get these areas confirmed and added to the free call list

Thanks Steve. Yes, as I said, it was just odd that the softphone-about popup states them (I already knew from the forums and my own experimentation), but the website did not mention them.

I know that it is not always a priority to update the web pages, but in this era of "want it all now", having an out-of-date website can be the kiss of death.

Updates also help keep the page ranked higher in SEO, and I would think that more public exposure would be viewed well by management!

[TheHardy]

First off, the FPL site does have a link/search engine, where you can type in a phone number and find out it's associated cost to call. This works for both CANADIAN numbers and INTERNATIONAL numbers (incl USA) to find a cost. If it is a "free call" within the defined city list, it is shown as such. This listing/database appears to be up-to-date, save a few newer exchanges (NPA-NXX's).

http://www.freephoneline.ca/ldServices#rl

Of note, the following cities are now included as free calling (and I have verified them as such):
Thunder Bay, ON (appears to include local calling area as well, as shown via above link)
-- Cloud Bay, Kaministiquia, Pass Lake, Raith, Shebandowan, Upsala)
Dryden, ON (appears to include local calling area as well, as per above link)
-- Eagle River, Hudson, Ignace, Oxdrift, Perrault Falls, Sioux Lookout, Vermilion Bay, Wabigoon)
Kenora, ON (appears to include local calling area as well, as per above link)
-- Clearwater Bay, Grassy Narrows, Jaffray-Melick, Keewatin, McKenzie Portage, Minaki, Redditt, Sioux Narrows, Whitedog)
McDonald's Corner, ON (local calling area from both Brockville and Perth where FPL has assigned FPL phone numbers)

[TheHardy]

I have had a failure to complete a "free call" to the Oakbank, MB area, which is a suburb of Winnipeg. According to both the FPL website search, and also the www.localcallingguide.com website, Oakbank is within the traditional local calling area of Winnipeg. FWIW.

[TheHardy]

Cleaning up today, and found a contact that I had written down on paper, in Trois Rivieres, QC. Figured I would plug the number into FPL and give them a call. Lo and behold, it appears that Trois Rivieres does indeed have free calling from FPL (based out of my Vancouver, BC softphone number). To verify this, I googled up 2 more TR phone numbers and gave them a ring too, just to confirm.

[TheHardy]

I am wondering if there are other cities/towns/areas that other users may have found that are not mentioned?

My PvtMsg (PM) suggestion to Steve involved a listing on the webpage, not of "each and every" city/town/area, but rather of the "metro area" associated with it, and then clicking on that city (or a drop down box?) would display the local calling area associated with it. To my way of thinking, that would simplify the search procedure somewhat for someone wishing to do a "look up" to see if the call is classified as free or not. What are the general thoughts on this?

Jake has a good list going, to which there have been links posted (and I have reposted, as they were in other threads), but the problem is, it is JUST a list. There is no real description to it. The FPL-towns one lists VICTORIA, but that is Victoria, ON not Victoria, BC. Yet without a further search or digging a little deeper (or just plain old knowing!) this is not obvious. Jake's NPA-NXX file (gleaned, I assume, from www.cnac.ca) is somewhat cumbersome to process (even with some of the recently added functionality).

The FPL rate search function, located off the Long Distance part of the site, is far from easy to find to a casual user.

As stated and agreed, the actual FPL-provided list is horribly out of date and needs a drastic make-over.

So far I have discovered a few additional cities that were not listed in ANY of the above, some by accident, some by research. I am sure that there are still "free" cities/towns out there, that I have not discovered yet, so it is hard to update anyone with them.

I have contacted Jake to do so for the ones I have found, but if there is any other user out there finding new ones, it would be handy to post them here, or perhaps under a separate thread for that purpose.

[Jake]

Jake has a good list going, to which there have been links posted (and I have reposted, as they were in other threads), but the problem is, it is JUST a list. There is no real description to it. The FPL-towns one lists VICTORIA, but that is Victoria, ON not Victoria, BC. Yet without a further search or digging a little deeper (or just plain old knowing!) this is not obvious.

That's a good point, so I added in the regions also now

[TheHardy]

Odd to note that it appears that the users/forum members are doing all the work! Again, I know that FPL provides us with free calling so they really have no obligation to us, but really? Anyways, I know I shouldn't complain and that it hasn't been very long since this was pointed out to Steve, so let's hope that the website is updated eventually.

Jake - thanks for taking it to heart and modifying that. Also, I am unsure if I PM'd you, but kudos on breaking up the huge NPX-NXX display -- but the 9xx series has no header to click on to access it, I can enter it manually in the address bar tho. Another tweak, when clicking in a different "sort criteria" header (IE city or region), it jumps back to the 2xx series rather than applying it to the one you are viewing!

[TheHardy]

Found a few more Quebec cities/towns that are free-to-call that I have not previously seen identified in either the website or Jake's listings:

Alma, QC
Chicoutimi, QC
Jonquiere, QC

Verified via dumping the NPA-NXX's into the FPL 'check-a-rate' calculator, and also a few test calls. Potentially there are some nearby associated towns as well, but I have not had the time nor inclination to check into them.

[TheHardy]

I have not seen any comment from any FPL mods/employees/reps regarding the additional ratecentres of "free long distance calling" that I mentioned above that I seem to have discovered/stumbled upon.

That said, I know that Steve has confirmed that Winnipeg is a free calling city (but not offering DID numbers). There is a tariff-ratecentre problem insofar as some of the NPA-NXX's of Winnipeg's "traditional local calling area" are not included. Should someone from FPL monitor this, have your tariff department check Oakbank specifically (but it may not be a bad idea to have them just check the whole kit and kaboodle for Winnipeg...)

[TheHardy]

Found a few more Quebec cities/towns that are free-to-call that I have not previously seen identified in either the website or Jake's listings:

Alma, QC
Chicoutimi, QC
Jonquiere, QC

Verified via dumping the NPA-NXX's into the FPL 'check-a-rate' calculator, and also a few test calls. Potentially there are some nearby associated towns as well, but I have not had the time nor inclination to check into them.

Well, I am sad to say that with one of the recent tariff tinkerings by FPL, the three above cities are NO LONGER $0.00 (FREE). They are now rated at $0.02 (plus the connection fee). I do not know if they were originally MIS-tariffed as being FREE and this has now been CORRECTED, or if their REMOVAL from the free-calling area was a MISTAKE.

Steve? Care to weigh in on this?

[FONGO_steve]

Those three cities were identified as being off-net cities which were mistakenly labelled as free in the system and were now corrected. Off-net cities cost us considerably more money to connect calls to and simply can not be given away for free.

[TheHardy]

Thanks for the explanation on those Steve. Without letting the herd of charging angry cats out of their tiny dark bag, are there any details of EXPANSION of free-to-call (or ON-NET) cities/exchanges/ratecenters coming ONLINE at FPL? Or is that sort of reflected in the re-jiggering of the tariff table?

I am not trying to paint you into a corner or anything, just wondering if there are MORE mistakes in the pipeline, or what is going on! I know that ON-NET does not necessarily mean that FPL has a PoP there, but in some cases just routing agreements/etc, so it is really hard for us to play guessing games!

Thanks in advance!

[FONGO_steve]

Thanks for the explanation on those Steve. Without letting the herd of charging angry cats out of their tiny dark bag, are there any details of EXPANSION of free-to-call (or ON-NET) cities/exchanges/ratecenters coming ONLINE at FPL? Or is that sort of reflected in the re-jiggering of the tariff table?

I am not trying to paint you into a corner or anything, just wondering if there are MORE mistakes in the pipeline, or what is going on! I know that ON-NET does not necessarily mean that FPL has a PoP there, but in some cases just routing agreements/etc, so it is really hard for us to play guessing games!

Thanks in advance!

Hey Hardy,
Unfortunately I'm not in a position at the company to comment on these sort of questions Whenever official service additions are announced, I'll always be sure to inform the forum readers in a timely manner.

[TheHardy]

Unfortunately I'm not in a position at the company to comment on these sort of questions Whenever official service additions are announced, I'll always be sure to inform the forum readers in a timely manner.

Fair enough -- could you let me know whom to address an email to (or PM if they exist here in our nice forum), or, if that information is CLASSIFIED, prod them nicely with a sharpened stick -- or just forward my request?

Thanks in advance, and my apologies for the assumption that you had your foot firmly planted on the pulse of everything that happens! Your usual speedy replies and excellent support have spoiled me into believing that you are usually the GO-TO guy for ALL answers! Those Atlas-like shoulders must be aching, eh?