how can i hold onto a local phone #, while away for extended period?
 

my friend is going to be out of the country for a couple years, and he wants to be able to use his telus cell #, when he eventually comes back. What is the best and cheapest way he can retain it? Every cell phone carrier i have had only goes 6 mos for a vacation disconnect, and even the cheapest basic plan is going to run over $20 a month.

go on disconnected for 6 months, pay for a month, then vacation again? I don't know if that works or not.

maybe he can transfer the # to a VOIP service, use the phone number over there, and then back to telus?..

move to pay to go
dont pay for 6 months pay once and wait 6 months again

Yes, I think the best idea is to transfer the number over to a VoIP provider. Even if it just sits unused, I think it can be as cheap as like $3 per month...

You can always just give the number to another friend to use for the time being.

You should just call Telus and ask them about this.

you can just disconnect the line and the will offer to hold it for you for a year...at least that is what fido did to me even though i still cut it after the year

thanks for all the responses, porting the # to VOIP seems like the way to go... i dont know why all these asshole phone companies cant just hold your stupid # for $5 a month or something

I believe cell providers used to offer that. They still might, have your friend call in and ask.

having been a telus rep... numerous times...

vacation disconnect is good for up to 6 months or up to 10 months / bitching (wen i left)

it's 9.95 a month and doesn't let your phone do shit... in fact, that also has a "system access fee" as well... which is $6.95

It's basically a cash grab, because you could just lower your plan down to $15-20 plans and still at least get something out of it. (this is if you're in a contract)

if you don't have a contract, Telus sucks anyways, and you should port to fido's cheap plans, or VOIP if you wanna go through that hassel, but be warned, the port center in telus sucks my left nut... and we often had to call and get it manually moved over.

and last but not least, find someone who'll actually use the phone... if you're willing to pay some of it, i'm sure they'd like a discount on their services...

with telus

pay and talk can be held for 60 day max.. with a $50 top-up card.

using any lower denomination would just let you keep it for $30... had many people complain that it wasn't like rogers/fido, where you pay $100 and it works for a year...

fucking money grubbing TELUS