Cellphone for emergency

[callopsitte_himself]

I'm a proud and happy customer of FPL for over 5 years and want to stay with them.
I put up my own pbx with freepbx and with my tablet I can use my phone almost anywhere.
My "problem" is if I'm not in an area with wifi (per example near a Tim Horton's) I cannot make calls. So if I had an emergency I would need a cellphone which I don't.
I used to have one with Telus (and still have it) but it's deactivated so no more phone number. I do not want to pay Telus $10,00 per month or $100,00 per year to use the cellphone maybe 3 times per year for 15 minutes of total calling time, that would be ridiculous.
I googled and found 7 Eleven which have great plans ($25,00 the least and would last one year and I could roll over).

So I could buy a cheap cellphone on Amazon, buy a SIM card ($10,00), a $25,00 airtime from 7 Eleven and port a number to them... Only problem is I don't have a number to port.

I know I can reactivate my Telus phone and get a new number if I buy a $10,00 card (which would be good for 30 days) but I doubt they would let me port out this number without a high fee (IF they let me port it out).

Anyone has any suggestion? Where can I buy a cheap number to port with 7 Eleven? Or maybe a reel geek that knows how I can use the Telus cell I have if I'm not in a wifi area ?

Thanks.

[Jake]

Do they block porting in FPL numbers? If not you could just create a free account here and port the number out to them.

I know how this sounds , especially seeing as this is a FPL provided forum, but I am sure FPL get more numbers than they loose.

[bridonca]

7-11 will assign you a number. You can then attempt to port your Telus number over, which if the account is still active, and you owe no money, (if prepaid, you owe no money), it should be an easy port. You can always get a cool Fongo number, and get that ported to 7-11 you want to go that way, because usually 7-11 assigns unpopular numbers.

Kijiji is a pretty good place to get a cheap phone. I would not get an expensive phone from Kijiji because of the scammers, but there is no easy money to be made in cheap feature phone scams, so you should be able to get a decent phone for cheap. Any phone that works with Rogers, Fido, Chatr, Sears, Zoomer, Cityphone, Petro Canada, Good2go or any other provider that uses Rogers towers will work with Speakout.

[callopsitte_himself]

Thanks Jake and Bridonca.

So 7-11 should assign me a (unpopular) number. I don't mind unpopular but does this mean I cannot ask for an Ottawa number (which is what I would like)? And if I like the number they assign can I make it permanent or is it a temporary number?

As for a new FPL account (number), my problem is I don't have a home phone other than FPL so I could not activate it (cannot activate using a FPL number). Is there a work around this?

And as for Telus, I would need to buy a prepaid... meaning I could probably not do this with à la carte? So I buy the cheapest prepaid which is $15,75 for 30 days and while it is active I port it to 7-11?

Thanks again

[bridonca]

With Speakout 7-11, you can get a phone number from anywhere in Canada that Rogers serves, just that they are not Rogers best numbers. You can certainly get Ottawa numbers though. The number Speakout 7-11 assigns to you is yours to use. If you port another number to Speakout 7-11, you will lose that assigned number.

If you want to port from Fongo, you would be best to set up another Fongo account, and port that number. After a successful port from Fongo to Speakout 7-11, you would lose that Fongo account, because there would no longer be a number tied to it.

I do not believe you need any money in your Telus account to have it ported over. As long as the account is still active, there can be a zero balance. Let Speakout 7-11 find out if they can port the number over. The only exception is if you are on a contract and owe on that. That does not apply to prepaid. What do you have for a phone on Telus? You might be able to unlock it for a small fee and be able to use it with Speakout 7-11

[mh1983]

Just wanted to respond to the comment Re: the cheapest Telus prepaid plan: you don't necessarily need to buy a 30 day plan at all. You could just put some money (top up) on the account and leave it there to keep the account active. You could also just use an add on, like $5 texting or $10 data. (I use $10 data on my account so I can make calls with Fongo when I'm away from a hotspot. That's all I have on my prepaid account).