Hi @VivekS1 , after reading all the solutions offered here, I had a thought. Why don't you give your child an old phone without a SIM in it until they reach an age that they understand what the cell phone does? My sister did that with my niece and it made for a financially and mentally happier life for my sister. Just a thought, I know it doesn't answer all the technicalities that you are looking for but might be a solution to letting your child play with your device. All the best
Hey @VivekS1! Welcome to the community. 
I can certainly understand your concerns, given you have a young child to watch over. I'll be happy to clarify things regarding our service restrictions for you.
With regards to our long distance restrictions, they do do block area codes. They actually restrict the use of the + or 011, in the case of international long distance, or the 1, in the case of North American long distance. Those are the limitations of our service restrictions for long distance.
As for data, we do offer a courtesy block at $50 of the account. However, you can also monitor your usage anytime through various methods found here. Our service restrictions there are limited to blocking all data access.
There's also a number of things you can do on most phones to restrict or shut-off access to it. For example, most android phones do have a feature to block data after a certain threshold is reached.
I hope all this helps!
Hello VivekS1,
Welcome to the community!
@VivekS1 wrote:... If Fido can ascertain which calls have been made to US and charge me for those, it MUST be able to block them too. I am still unclear why can you not block US calling. Please give me a better explanation.
I understand that intuitively, it might seem possible to just block calls made to the US. However, it is not feasible for the phone companies to do so. Note that it is not just a Fido issue. The blocking outgoing International calls does not block calls to US from Canada (or to Canada from US) with all the telecommunications providers -- landline or mobile (see here).
The reason is because both Canada and the US use the same North American Numbering Plan (NANP). In fact, blocking International calls also won't block calls to the other 24 Countries either because they all use the same Country Calling code, 1. Blocking that Country code would also block calls within Canada.
While it might seem reasonable to block area codes, it's not feasible. Within the NANP, there are at least 380 area codes -- 338 outside of Canada. Significant resources would be required to scan through the area codes prior to every call. In addition, as populations grow, area codes are continually being added.
Have you considered enabling Airplane or Flight mode prior to giving it to your young child to play with? That way, they won't be able to accidentally make any calls. If your child needs Wifi, you can manually enable it when required.
Hope this helps 😀
Cheers
Hello Somabhaip-81,
Welcome to the community!
As explained previously in this thread, it is not possible to block calls to the US without blocking calls within Canada because they have the same Country code. If you wish to prevent accidental calls to the US, you would need to verify the phone number's area code belongs to Canada.
Hope this helps 😀
Cheers
Hello again,
@VivekS1 wrote:..my question is if Fido can ascertain which calls have been made to US and charge me specifically for that, why can you not block the same calls? ..
There's a difference between being able to identify a call destination location after a call has been connected and trying to identify the call destination before the calls get connected. Yes, once the calls connect, they will know to where the call connected. The issue is being able to identify the call destination before the call actually goes through. As mentioned above, significant resources would be required to scan through the area codes prior to every call. Even if they scanned for Canadian area codes, that's still at least 42 area codes -- and that doesn't include the most recent additions. It is not feasible to scan area codes before the calls connect.
As previously mentioned, it affects all of the telecommunications providers, both landline and mobile.
You have been given an answer to your second query:
@FidoPhilippe wrote:...Our service restrictions there are limited to blocking all data access...
You're not going to get a different answer. They're complying with the Wireless Code regarding data overages.
Hope this helps 😀
Cheers
Hi @VivekS1,
I assure you, the right and correct information was provided by both @Cawtau and @FidoPhilippe. Their posts explained how both the long distance calling and data systems work in full details.
With that said, I'll be sending you a PM to review this with you.
Talk to you soon.
Thank you for the follow up!
I'd need the remainder of your information through PM though. Here's an article with the steps to continue in PM.
Talk to you soon!
