Cell to Vonage Transfer Successful!

Posts: 58

Good-day Everyone:

With cell number portability available here in Canada since March 14th of this year, I decided to try to port my Fido cell number to my pre-existing Vonage service (which I've had for 15 months now). I used the Vonage service which allows you to port a number, but keep your existing Vonage number as a Virtual Number (which is good, as in this case my Vonage number was a West Coast area code, and my cell number is a Toronto number).

It's taken nearly a month, but today the transfer finally went through. According to Vonage everything should be working by midnight tonight (a quick attempt to call my cell number from another Vonage line has it still going to my Fido voice mail, so it doesn't look like it's 100% ready, even though Vonage sent me an e-mail saying the transfer is complete).

In my case, I've been paying more than $50 a month for a $25/month cell plan with Fido, but have used it for less than an average of 15 minutes for the last several months (last months bill had me using it for less than 5 minutes -- I get no reception either at home or at the office).

Anyhow, as I haven't heard of anyone else trying this, I just wanted ot let people know it does work. Vonage did have to contact me for my Fido account number, which slowed down the process.

Now all that I need is a good WiFi mobile phone to use with my Vonage Softphone service, and I'll be all set (and saving money).

Yaz.

Posts: 508 · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject:

Congrats!! and thanks for this, please let us know if/when it does for sure work, and your fido is cancelled.. I will be sure to pass this info along to howardforums.com, ppl there will be happy to know this is another option for them... Smile

(for anyone who hasn't been there, it's a North America-Wide cell phone forum)

Posts: 58 · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject:

dabones wrote:

Congrats!! and thanks for this, please let us know if/when it does for sure work, and your fido is cancelled.. I will be sure to pass this info along to howardforums.com, ppl there will be happy to know this is another option for them... Smile

(for anyone who hasn't been there, it's a North America-Wide cell phone forum)

I will. I've been testing it on and off this evening with a different Vonage line, and so far my Fido voicemail is still picking up. However, there are still 5 hours left before midnight.

I actually got three e-mails from Vonage, all close to one another. The first said that the transfer would be complete before April 30th, and that I'd get an e-mail when the transfer is complete. The second (sent one minute later) said the transfer was complete, and would be 100% complete by midnight tonight. The third was a dry-loop DSL message (which doesn't apply to me anyhow).

I'll post as soon as it's complete. One of the Vonage e-mails mentioned that I don't have to cancel my old phone service, and that they've done this for me. I'll check into this as well, and will be sure to let everyone know if this is indeed the case or not (as Vonage's system does seem to still be setup to assume the number is being ported from a landline -- the rules might be different for cellular).

Yaz.

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

you should have just gone with a pay as you go phone and pay as little as $10 a month and if you don't use it, roll it over the next month.

The Wi-fi phone is a great idea, but really are you in an area that has free wi-fi service?

Posts: 58 · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:17 pm Post subject:

roscopco wrote:

you should have just gone with a pay as you go phone and pay as little as $10 a month and if you don't use it, roll it over the next month.

The Wi-fi phone is a great idea, but really are you in an area that has free wi-fi service?

Well, 90% of my time is spent in two locations -- home, and the office. Both have excellent WiFi, and cell service in both is absolutely zero (I can get a signal once in a while at home if I stand in a specific corner of my apartment, but something about the design of my office building prevents everyone from getting any sort of signal, regardless of provider). As I'm currently teaching at a large University that has campus-wide WiFi, probably the only time I'm outside of WiFi access is when I'm in my car -- and I don't make or accept calls when I'm driving.

I did think of going prepaid, but Fido's prepaid vouchers are only good for 30 days. There is nothing I can find on their website about rolling the minutes over into a new month -- from what I've read, if you don't use them, they're just gone. That doesn't sound like a very good deal to me.

I'm a low volume phone user. I really don't feel the need to talk to people while I'm walking down the street, driving my car, sitting in a restaurant, etc. I also want to keep my Toronto number, so this transfer is perfect for me.

Obviously, YMMV. Cell service here in Canada is very highly overrated -- more expensive than the rest of the Westernized world, with significantly worse technology.

(On a side note, I am curious to see if Apple's iPhone will support SIP, as it is WiFi enabled. This would be the perfect device for me, but chances are it won't be available in Canada without a service plan, and it will probably be really expensive. No matter -- I can wait).

Yaz.

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

I agree with you on cell phone service here in Canada and the U.S for that matter. I have an unlocked phone that I use while traveling in Europe, I was in Germany and I was calling back here to Canada for 9 Euro cents a minute! With Rogers pay as you go it is 35 cents a minute and Bell is cheaper than that.

If you have great Wi-Fi service and for sure a wifi phone is the answer. Myself I travel mostly in Europe and internet isn't usually free in the hotels and it usually cost around $25 U.S a day!

Now that Canada has enabled people to port their cell phone number it is a bit better, but if you have a Bell phone porting your number still means you have to buy a new phone with the other carrier since you can't use a bell phone on Rogers.

Posts: 58 · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:59 pm Post subject:

roscopco wrote:

If you have great Wi-Fi service and for sure a wifi phone is the answer. Myself I travel mostly in Europe and internet isn't usually free in the hotels and it usually cost around $25 U.S a day!

I'm also fortunate in that I have an Apple Airport Express, which is a pocket sized WiFi router. When I travel, I try to ensure I book into places with free Internet access, and if it's wired I just plug in the Airport Express and create my own wireless network.

I do still need to find a good WiFi mobile phone that fits my needs to make my full dream come true, mind you Smile

. My main desires are a WiFi phone with a mobile browser, IMAP e-mail, and Bluetooth, and iSync compatibility would be a big plus. But so far, just trying to find such a phone with Bluetooth support is difficult. The D-Link V-ACCESS looks interesting, but it's expensive. We need for more competition in this space to heat up -- it seems to me that the companies that have tried mobile VoIP phones have just been testing the waters. I'm hoping if the Apple iPhone ever supports SIP that things will heat up in this area.

Yaz.

Posts: 208 · Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 12:04 am Post subject:

If the iPhone ever supports a dual mode Cellular/VoIP telephony, I'd trade my first born.

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

What company in Canada is going to get the contract for the Iphone?

In North America most hotels now have free wifi, but Europe is behind in this matter. I also stay in expensive hotels with my work so the hotels figure if you can afford to stay there then you can afford the internet.

Posts: 58 · Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:37 am Post subject:

roscopco wrote:

What company in Canada is going to get the contract for the Iphone?

The iPhone is a GSM device, and there are only two GSM providers: Rogers, and Fido. Rogers owns Fido, so it could potentially be both. However, Rogers has made some (premature) announcements and suggestions stating that they're going to be the sole provider.

If it's a runaway success, I can see them making it available through both services, as it really doesn't benefit them a whole lot to have a lot of Fido customers churn over to Rogers (although with cancellation fees and such, perhaps it will?).

If they wind up including (or later adding) a SIP application, and if I can get one outside of a cell provider for VoIP-only use, I can probably justify using some research dollars to get one (as my area of research is primarily in the realm of handheld computer communications). I'm hopeful on the SIP front -- it's the perfect hardware platform for this sort of thing, and Apple already has SIP implemented in their iChat client software (not for generic VoIP, mind you -- it's not tied into the phone system anywhere. It's currently just used to initiate iChat sessions between users). Getting one without a service plan is going to be more difficult -- I'm really rather unhappy with the way North American cell providers tie their service to specific phone models, and how hard it can be to get (and in some cases use) phones that aren't provider stamped and approved.

Yaz.