Canadians Get RFed

[RF.com Staff]

We've been threatening this for a while and we finally did it. Today, RF.com took it's first big step towards internationalization.

OK. Perhaps not that big a step, just a little one across the northern border. But for all intents and purposes, RF.com's presence in Canada makes it a lot easier for us to launch throughout the rest of the iPhone world in short order.

Being in Canada means that we now offer a local calling POP to those who sign up with RF.com in Canada. The service offered in Canada is exactly the same as what we've been dishing up in the US for past few months: Free Skype, GoogleTalk, Yahoo, MSN, SIP URI calling; free use of your own VoIP provider to make calls; free full integration with Asterisk and other IP-capable PBXes.

Soon (and by that we mean this month), we'll begin offering RF.com in Europe and elsewhere (our closed tests in Europe are going splendidly).

Big things are coming . . .... More...

[JimCanuck]

Congratulations on getting an initial Canadian PoP. However, it is still a long distance call to Vancovuer for most Canadians. Would be most helpful to add PoP's for (1) Toronto, (2) Montreal, (3) Calgary, (4) Ottawa and (5) Halifax.

[eric]

Our sympathies go out to you Rogers users, we'll see what we can do about adding POP's.

Can anyone provide us with area code groupings? Which calls, if any, between area codes in Canada are considered local calls?

[AllaNET]

Our sympathies go out to you Rogers users, we'll see what we can do about adding POP's.

Can anyone provide us with area code groupings? Which calls, if any, between area codes in Canada are considered local calls?

Hi Eric,

Unfortunately, the Canadian carriers don't group local calling areas by the area code. For instance, some numbers in the 905 area code will be free/local, while others (also a 905 area code) are considered long distance. To make things worse, it depends on which cellular tower is being used at the time of the call for the network to classify it as a "local" calling area.

Therefore, the solution proposed above (i.e. to add POP numbers in major Canadian metropolitan areas) is the best until RF becomes a native app (hope dies last!! ).

PS: As a small suggestion, I'd recommend rolling out POPS based on potential number of RF users (utilitarian method ). For instance, Toronto in the largest city in Canada (close to 5 mil), while Vancouver is only 2 mil. I'd setup a 416 POP first.... Same would apply to RF efforts worldwide.

Thank you!

[justhamade]

Here is the local calling guide for US and Canada
I think you would have as many users in Vancouver as in Toronto even though the population is 1/3.

Please add 604 or 778 area code DIDs are cheap.

[eric]

Yes they are.

Recoding the backend to support multiple POPs in one country is not so cheap, but is on the roadmap as part of our backend upgrade.

[justhamade]

Really? I don't see how that could be that hard. Another column in the DB. Having a single number for each country doesn't make much sense, and really would limit flexibity.

I am willing to help with that. I do a lot of coding for VoIP applications.

[umar]

604 has been replaced by 416? Any chances to get it back?

[marcelo]

We are working to add multiple POP options for Canada that will cover most of the major cities (and, yes, a Vancouver number will be among them). We'll let Canadian RF.com users know when the feature is added and how it is accessed.

We switched the current POP to Toronto because we noticed that the single largest number of RF.com users were in the 416 area code.

Because the service began in the United States (where the entire country is a local call on AT&T's iPhone calling plans) we had not yet put coded a method to allow a user to choose from among more than one POP. For Canada (and other countries where RF.com will be offered soon) where nationwide "local" calling does not exist, we'll have that method coded and ready to use soon.

[madali]

Hi,
I would be interested to see a local area code of 514 (Montreal area).
Will that be coming soon?

Thx.