Is there a long distance charge from Canada while roaming?

[medic30786]

I am currently roaming in Hawaii and using Fido Roam. I have a client in Vancouver that refuses to call me because he claims that if he calls me when i am roaming in Hawaii, he will receive a long distance charge on his Fido bill. He says that this has happened to him before while calling a person roaming in California.

I have looked online and I cannot find anything that supports his argument. He claims that if the cell signal pings off of a cell tower in Hawaii, he will be charged for long distance. I have never heard of this happening except with this client.

Can anyone enlighten me about this claim?

[Cawtau]

Hello Medic30786,

  Welcome to the community!

  Provided your client calls your Canadian phone number, the call would be the same as if you and your phone were still in Canada. To them, they would dial your number as usual since they would not necessarily know where you and your device are located. As you are aware, you would incur Fido Roam charges for accepting the call (see here).

  I'm not sure why your client claims he previously got charged for a similar situation. It could be related to their plan. If their plan only includes local or Provincial calling, making calls to numbers outside of their local calling area would incur long-distance charges even though the numbers are Canadian. For example, with a plan including Provincial calling, a call from a BC number to ON number would incur long-distance charges. It's possible they called a Canadian number with an area code outside of their local calling area which happened to occur when the owner of the number was out of the Country.

  Above, I stated the call would be the same as if you and your phone were still in Canada. If your client does not incur long-distance charges dialling your number when you are in Canada, there would not be any long-distance charges for them dialling your number when you are out of the Country.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers