Forwarding call to a US cell phone

[shadowseb]

Hi all!,

I'm a trucker and soon. hi will go to US often, to not say always (go and back Quebec to California), so I plan to get a cellphone plan with a US cellphone carrier's (probably Verizon or Boost, not sure) and i would like to know if I can use the forwarding system to a US cellphone number for free? It's not a problem for me to pay, its just because i don't want to my family and friends, if theys needs to join me, get fee, so they keep my canadian cellphone number.

Forwarding schema:

Montreal cellphone number -> Montreal freephoneline number -> US Cellphone number

Do you know if that's possible?

Thanks!

Seb

[FONGO_steve]

At this time we can't forward to a USA number. However, have you considered buying SIP settings and using a mobile VOIP application to use your freephoneline number on the go? If you have WiFi or 3G access you could call home (and to most major cities in Canada) at no cost using our service. This should definitely be much cheaper than paying long distance fees on an American cell.

[TheHardy]

Hey Shadowseb ...

Steve is correct, at this time FPL does not offer this service. I know what you are trying to do, however, keeping a local number for friends and family to get a hold of you.

Steve: US cell rates are DIRT cheap compared to Canadian ones, and 99% of the US plans include NATIONWIDE LD -- your local calling zone is the 48 continental states. Canada LD is an add on option (and Shadowseb, I would SUGGEST it -- as well as looking at getting the USA/Cda option to reduce your ROAMING fees, which can get stupid); several US providers offer "trucker" type plans. If you are a member of a union or trucking association, ask them -- some offer discount plans, or when you sign up with a US provider, mention ANY affiliation you have for a potential discount.

A few solutions to offer to you ... forwarding a Canadian cell # can prove expensive with the LD, unless you have a good plan ... one thing that may work is if your local home telephone service provider offers a good cheap LD plan would be to get a 2nd home phone number and leave that perma-forwarded to your US cell. VOIP.MS is another option, but it is PAYG on usage and you would get dinged on 2 legs of the call (ie: the call into the number, and the again on the outbound forwarding to whereever you are). There may be some elegant work arounds, but you might also be slightly inconvenienced.

Having an FPL # is never a bad idea -- set it to forward voicemails to your email -- if your US cell phone has data, set the email address to one that comes to the phone via email, and you will always be immediately notified of new voicemails that way and can check them and reply if needed.

Good luck in your career as an OTR hauler ... I am in the industry .... tough way to make a living these days .... I am out at the beach here tho, and drive mainly locally. Keep that shiny side up, and may your crappy new ULSD bio-diesel never gel up on you!

[Jake]

Would the call go through if he bought a LD voucher (and auto renewed it for convenience) and the forwarded the call from within an ATA rather than trying to forward it online?

I know it would mean buying an ATA and config file, but that is never a bad thing.

[FONGO_mike]

Jake, at the moment even if you were to put on LD voucher with the auto renew, it still would not work.

[TheHardy]

Mike -- I think that Jake was saying to use HARDWARE forwarding rather than software forwarding --- seeing as how FPL allows you to dial out to US numbers, how would HARDWARE forwarding NOT be possible?? I am lost, sorry if I have misunderstood ...

I know that using the "control panel" of the account, you cannot select a NON-Canadian # for a forward #, but how would FPL/FonGo stop HARDWARE forwarding to ANY number ????

[apukwa]

Mike... is "at the moment" foretelling of changes to come? I've been hoping/wishing/asking for this for a long time (being able to forward to toll numbers - I'm even willing to pay for it!).

[bridonca]

Another option is to get a Magicjack device, and set up a Montreal number. Magicjack can forward to any number in Canada/US. The magicjack dongle is pretty handy for a trucker with a laptop with access to wifi.

[dibsmft]

I don't know much about cell phones but wonder if you could use a US phone that can also do sip....there are quite a number of them I think. (The old Nokia N95 certainly does/did via wifi or data, I think that model is no longer available but some Android phones should work). If you can do that then if you are logged into FPL whilst in the US then the phone will ring. Is that what you want ?.

An alternative would be to use a SipSorcery account (I have a free one but they are no longer available so ~$35/year). That should log into FPL and incoming calls could be transferred to another provider (eg. voip.ms) or directly to a free voip provider and thence to the cell(if you have a voip/cell phone in the US). With that method there are many options.

There are some more ideas but it would be much simpler if you could forward to the US directly from FPL.

[Jake]

Mike... is "at the moment" foretelling of changes to come? I've been hoping/wishing/asking for this for a long time (being able to forward to toll numbers - I'm even willing to pay for it!).

Have you tried forwarding it from within the ATA? I can't test it because I have a PBX set up, but it might be worth you spending 5 minutes testing.

[dibsmft]

As far as I recall, neither the GS286 nor the PAP2, although they have 2 lines, allow forwarding. The SPA3102 will forward from the PSTN line to SIP or from the SIP line to PSTN (and I know that works as I have an SPA3102). Of course a PBX would do...

[apukwa]

Have you tried forwarding it from within the ATA? I can't test it because I have a PBX set up, but it might be worth you spending 5 minutes testing.

Hi Jake...

Absolutely I could, but that doesn't meet my needs unfortunately. I can't rely on my ATA due to power & network issues at the location. I would much rather do the forward as a "follow-me" number that I'd be happy to pay LD for.

[Jake]

I know I recommend PBXES.org a lot, but they could help here. It depends on how much you want to play around with things.

I just tested this with one of my accounts, and it should work for you, as long as you have a topped up LD voucher.

1. Create an account @ pbxes.org.
2. Click to set up a SIP trunk.
a) Enter trunk name (FPL)
b) Enter Username - 1613366XXXX
c) Enter Password - XXXXXXXXX
d) Enter SIP Server - voip.freephoneline.ca
e) Click Submit.
3. Click to set up a Ring Group.
a) Strategy - Ring All
b) Enter your phone number(s) for forward to in the extensions list FOLLOWED BY # (eg 6133660000#)
c) Click Submit
4. Click to set up Incoming Route
a) Click the Ring Group option, and the ring group number you set up in 3.
b) Click Submit
5. Click to set up an Outgoing Route
a) Choose the SIP trunk set up in 2. for the Trunk Sequence.
b) Click Submit.
You should have a red bar along the top (you should have had it since the first time you changed something) which you should click now.

This should set it up so when it gets an incoming call it rings your Ring Group. Remember FPL does not want a 1 in front of numbers, I think that is also true for calls to the US. Above is just the settings I added, everything else was left as is, or blank.

If it doesn't work, look on the status page, and also on the sip settings page and call log page on your FPL account. It might give a clue as to what is going on. As I say, it depends on how much you want to play around.

EDIT**
It looks like you might also be able to set up a CLASSIC EXTENSION (enter the number to call in the PSTN box). Then skip out the Ring Group bit above and in step 4. pick the extension you just set up.

[Jake]

Incidentally I see there is an option in the SIP Trunk settings to force the caller ID, so this setup could be used to forward to your cell phone (use your cell number in the Extensions List) and set your favourite number on your cell plan to the number you have forced in the callerID box. This would give you free incoming calls to your cell if they call your FPL number.