forwarding calls to an international number?

[jmcl]

I'll be in Europe for 6 weeks, and will be buying various international SIM cards along the way. Does anyone know if it's possible to forward my fusion voice number to an international number?

[virtualmike]

There's an easy way to find out...

[dane]

I'll be in Europe for 6 weeks, and will be buying various international SIM cards along the way. Does anyone know if it's possible to forward my fusion voice number to an international number?

No, I'm afraid not - you can only forward a Fusion line to a North American (10 digit) phone number.

[scharfs]

I'll be in Europe for 6 weeks, and will be buying various international SIM cards along the way. Does anyone know if it's possible to forward my fusion voice number to an international number?

I called Sonic before I went to China in June and they told me that international forwarding would work, but they were incorrect. Google Voice has the same issue, no international forwarding.

The way around this is to sign up for a local phone number at http://localphone.com. http://Onesuite.com may also work, but I haven't tried it. http://Localphone.com is not free, but it's pretty inexpensive. It's a $3 set up fee then $0.99/month for as long as you want it. So for six weeks it would cost you $4.98 plus whatever usage charges you incur, but the rates are very low. Forward your landline and cell phones to to the localphone number, and forward the localphone number to your foreign SIM card number. You can log onto their web site as you purchase SIM cards along the way, and change the forwarding number.

http://Localphone.com also has a VOIP app for smart phones which you can use to make calls over Wi-FI, which will save you money (assuming Wi-Fi is available of course). I used that a lot in China. http://OneSuite.com does not have an app like that.

http://www.localphone.com/services/incoming_numbers
http://www.onesuite.com/products_OneSuiteForwarding.asp

Not sure about Europe, but one issue in China is that some hotels have only wired Ethernet access so you can't use Wi-Fi devices. I brought along a travel router to solve that problem and it was very useful. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0045TLF10.

Remember, you may be getting calls at odd hours unless you turn off the cell phone at night.

One service to avoid is http://keku.com. It sounds great as they don't charge you for an incoming local number. The catch is that the local number they give you is not a unique local number, it's essentially an access number to their VOIP system. The system is supposed to use Caller ID to identify your registered phones (landline, cell, etc) then use that information to determine where to forward the call to. It doesn't really work because often the Caller ID it sees is the Caller ID of the originating call, which is passed through. The caller is then prompted for a 14 digit PIN, which of course they don't know.

I have information on this subject at http://nordicgroup.us/forwarding.pdf

I wish Sonic and GV would allow international forwarding. There must be some regulatory issues with doing so because it is such a valuable feature to have that I can't imagine them not providing it unless there were a good reason to not have it (plus they charge for international calls, so it would be a revenue source).

Sorry for the long-winded answer. I think that a lot of people would like to know how to forward calls to prepaid international numbers at low cost.

[virtualmike]

Don't apologize! That's great information, and I've captured it in Evernote.

[scharfs]

Don't apologize! That's great information, and I've captured it in Evernote.

One thing I wish Sonic would add to Fusion Voice is the same option that Google Voice has where you can select which Caller ID is transmitted when a call is forwarded. On Google Voice you can choose to make the Caller ID the Google Voice phone number or you can choose to make the Caller ID the number that is calling Google Voice.

If they did this, you could use a service like Keku.com to forward calls, since Keku will only work if it recognizes the Caller ID as a phone number that is registered with Keku.

I've turned the document I wrote into a little web site. http://nordicgroup.us/internationalcalling/ .

So now there's four things I'd like to see on Fusion Voice:

1. Blacklists of numbers (Ooma Premier has this service)
2. International forwarding
3. Blocking of numbers that have caller ID blocked
4. Choice of Caller ID information when calls are forwarded (Google Voice has this)

[dane]

We are working on items one and three - and hadn't considered item four. We will discuss whether or not that is something we can do here soon.

I don't anticipate we will offer forwarding to international destinations, but things may change over time, we will continue to think about that one.

[scharfs]

We are working on items one and three - and hadn't considered item four. We will discuss whether or not that is something we can do here soon.

I don't anticipate we will offer forwarding to international destinations, but things may change over time, we will continue to think about that one.

Is there some regulatory issue with allowing international forwarding? International calling is already available on Fusion, and presumably it's something that generates at least a small amount of revenue.

[dane]

We are working on items one and three - and hadn't considered item four. We will discuss whether or not that is something we can do here soon.

I don't anticipate we will offer forwarding to international destinations, but things may change over time, we will continue to think about that one.

Is there some regulatory issue with allowing international forwarding? International calling is already available on Fusion, and presumably it's something that generates at least a small amount of revenue.

I don't believe there is a regulatory barrier. International which is billed is revenue neutral - we don't mark up our costs. But, we take the costs for calls to select destinations, for the first eight hours. So far, that's just Canada, but we are adding a slate of six additional countries in the next week or two - so would those eight hours of free calling be applicable to calls which were forwarded? If so, there are costs in terminating those calls.

Big picture, Fusion is a "defined profit" product, not a "maximize margin" product. Our goal is to cut costs for everyone so that we can add more features and benefits, while maintaining a specific profit per customer. So, for example, if the product is "too profitable", we add more capabilities (more international destinations, hosting, etc.) This is what has driven the price reductions in the product from $55, to $50, to the current $39.95 rate too. This model is also what drives adding more countries of free calling, our free web hosting and free domain registration, etc. As a result we need to be careful not to structure features which have costs and which a minority might over-utilize, because then everyone ends up "paying" for them effectively, through less new feature deployment, less price reductions, etc.

Another concern is the potential for huge costs for customers, as international get expensive. Or abuse, or the desire to abuse because there is something of value to steal - minutes to high-cost countries. Someone obtains a Sonic.net customer's password via it being used elsewhere, social engineering, etc - then sets their Fusion TN to forward to their selected destination in high-cost country, then makes piles of calls, racking up thousands of dollars in charges.

[danzingone]

I'll be in Europe for 6 weeks, and will be buying various international SIM cards along the way. Does anyone know if it's possible to forward my fusion voice number to an international number?

No, I'm afraid not - you can only forward a Fusion line to a North American (10 digit) phone number.

Regarding the above reference to North American call forwarding, is forwarding outside the U.S. now blocked for Fusion and VOIP customers? If so, when was this change made, why was there no notice, and why does the user interface still seem to allow forwarding when someone enters a North American number outside the US, either when setting up Fusion forwarding with *72, or on the web interface? And why are at least some of Sonic's tech support personnel not aware of a change which may have been made weeks ago?

Until now, North American call forwarding has been a useful function of Sonic's service that I have relied on when traveling. However, I learned from a caller that during a recent trip, my incoming calls - which I thought were being forwarded - were not. Instead, callers apparently received a message that my home number was "not in service." Another Sonic customer I spoke with experienced the same issue. In both cases, not only were the incoming calls not forwarded, but there was no way for callers even to leave a voice message. This is an unacceptable breach of customer trust and expectations.

If Sonic finds it necessary to discontinue one of its services, an advance announcement should be made to customers, at the minimum on a billing statement and/or by email before implementation. In the case of an emergency, Sonic should have a protocol in place for giving customers status updates by email, as soon as possible.

Furthermore, in the event of a service change this significant, the following should happen:
1) Customers should be informed whether the downgrade in service is temporary or permanent, and should be provided with any suggested workarounds.
2) All customer support representatives should be fully informed of the new situation, so they do not provide conflicting information.
3) Relevant information throughout Sonic's website should be updated to reflect the change in service.
4) User interfaces for both Fusion's Star codes and the web interfaces for Fusion and VOIP should be modified in conjunction with implementation of the new policy. In the current situation, this would have prevented the possibility that customers away from home for an extended period would unknowingly lose all incoming calls the entire time they were away.
5) In the event of a service downgrade, Sonic should consider adjusting its rates.

Thank you for your attention.