Prepend 1 for long distances ?

[pscantland]

Hi,

I frequently travel between Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City and would like to know how I could easily add the preceding 1 to the phone numbers in my address book.

Say I have a contact phone number saved as : 514-123-4567 (which is right in Montreal) and I want to call him while in Ottawa, I must "remember" the phone number then dial it in manually... quite tiedy.

Of course I could use 2 phone numbers for each scenario, say Steve - Office phone number local AND Steve - Office phone number long distance... that doesn't seem like a logical way though.

Any way that I could do that ? Is there any shorchut to automatically prepend the 1 for long distances ?

Thanks!

[plunker]

I have never heard of any service that requires you to use the 1 to dial long distance. Is this a Canadian carrier? My local cell company doesn't, Sprint does not, and I believe cell one/alltel does not. Does your plan not include long distance?

[pscantland]

Thank you Plunker,

My carrier is Telus... each time I try to call a long distance call, it says that I am attempting to make a long distance call (!) and that I must call 1, then the regional code, then the phone number.

[benjie]

The settings - from my Sprint Treo 650 - maybe the same?

From the default dialer - Options - Dial Preferences - North American Dialing and then check the 2nd options - Always dial +1...

Ben

[plunker]

Wow! Ben I have never seen that option. I guess I haven't needed it so never noticed it.

[benjie]

I was not aware it was needed in Canada...wow. The North American dialing thing should do it by itself.

Ben

[pscantland]

Thanks benjie,

That would have been a great tip but that option does not exist on my Telus Treo 650...

At home, on my VTech phone, there is an option, from any phone number to hit the CID button, then OPT#, then it displays various phone number combination for that given phone number, say 514-123-4567:

123-4567
1-123-4567
514-123-4567
1-514-123-4567

I just pick the one I want and that's it. I was looking for that kind of options with my Treo.

[plunker]

Maybe third party software??

[benjie]

TakePhone (www.shsh.com) may be an answer. It has a speed dial screen and of course, one can always insert the 1 and area code in the address book itself. It also supports North American dialing. The option that you are looking for though just does not exist.

123-4567
1-123-4567 <---- I thought this was a dead animal.

514-123-4567 <--------- Are these different?
1-514-123-4567 <--------- Are these different?

So, if you put a 1 in front of an area code - it does not always work? I am very, very confused - though I live in paradise where things are different than the mainland.

Ben

[pscantland]

Am I dumb! I just called someone, that's a local call, by prepending 1 to its phone number and it just work ! In other words I just have to prepend each phone number with 1 and let the network choose if it's local or long distance. No more fuss as whether I should put 1 or not...

I guess that's another RTFM case. ;) Cellphone 101.