[anton-k]

I live in the 250 area code in Canada, and when I travel out of town, I have to dial a 1 in front of any number outside of that local area. All my local contacts are in my phone book as 250-XXX-XXXX, so when I'm out of town a 1 in front of the number is required otherwise the call won't go through. My old Treo had a Prepend function that let you add a 1 (or anything) at the beginning of any number if your phonebook, but my Blackberry doesn't seem to have it. So as I see it, my only options are:

1) Adding a 1 to the beginning of every single contact I have so that I can dial them when out of town. That would be a pain to change all my contacts AND always put a 1 at the beginning of any contacts I ever add
2) Try to memorize the phone number I want to dial from my phone book and just add a 1

Another problem is that if you have am out of town missed call, for example, the 1 won't show up in the caller id, so you can't call it back directly, so Option 2 as above would be the only option. Seems pretty crappy for a $600 phone...

Am I missing something, or does Blackberry really need to add the Prepend function to easily add that 1 in front of any number as necessary?

[jeffh]

Press the Green Phone button, then Menu and select Options / Smart Dialing. Make sure your codes are entered correctly. Select Yes for "Use "1" for National Dialing." That works in the US. I assume Canada is compatible. All my numbers are in the form nnn-mmm-oooo and all dial correctly regardless of what area code I'm in, in the US.

[anton-k]

Nope, that doesn't work in Canada (or at least with Telus). I don't know if this ever happens in the US, but here it can be a long distance call even when it's the same area code, eg. if I drive 50kms north of where I live, I'm still in the 250 area code, and yet I have to dial a 1 and it's a long distance call back to my home area. Most of British Columbia is 250, but most of the calls are long distance. I'm assuminig the Smart Dialing knows to add the 1 only when you're dialing a different area code which is why it doesn't do much for me.

[anton-k]

Come to think of it, there's no option to select Yes for "Use 1" for National Dialing. In the Smart Dialing menu, all there is is Country Code (Canada +1 is selected), Area Code, and National Number Length (changing it from 10 to 11 digits doesn't do anything). The rest is Corporate Dialing and not applicable.

[jeffh]

No, long distance calls within the same area code are the norm in the US also. I live near a LATA boundary. I can drive 10km north from my Alabama home, still be in area code 256, and it's a long distance call home. That's one thing that's so great about the BlackBerry in the US. It dials the "1" when needed without any user intervention. I don't know why it wouldn't in Canada, but I've never used the Canadian phone system. I'm going to forward this thread to the mods who live in Canada. If anyone knows the solution, they will.

[anton-k]

That's strange that it's different here if the same situation occurs in the US. Perhaps it is Telus and not the fact that I'm in Canada, but the automatic dialing of the 1 would be really, really handy!

Thanks for your help so far!

[Bla1ze]

That's strange that it's different here if the same situation occurs in the US. Perhaps it is Telus and not the fact that I'm in Canada, but the automatic dialing of the 1 would be really, really handy!

Thanks for your help so far!

Mine auto assigns on Rogers.. do you have smart dialing enabled? Press send, go to options and then smart dialing.. set it to Canada if it's not already. Even if my contacts don't have the (1) it drops it in there anyway.

[anton-k]

Yep, it's set to Canada as I mentioned above. Nothing seems to get added to anything automatically. So it does sound like it's Telus, not just being in Canada. I have a feeling that Bell is the same.

[janos2808]

I'm with Telus and smart dialing works fine on my Torch -- it automatically adds 1 before the number whenever necessary.

[yogi]

I'm with Telus and smart dialing works fine on my Torch -- it automatically adds 1 before the number whenever necessary.

IT's the same for me.

[anton-k]

Can it just be a West Coast thing then or something...? Does it work for both dialing from your contact list AND if you just dial a number using the area code but not a 1 in front of it?

Anyone else having this issue, or is it just BC, or is it just M-E?

[janos2808]

It works from both my contact list and the keypad. If I dial from the keypad, it doesn't display the 1 on screen, but it still inserts it and dials the number.

(BTW, I never actually do this in real life because I use the BudPhone app, which gives you free long-distance across Canada and also makes the +1 issue irrelevant. Plus, if you enter your local BudPhone number on your Telus favourite numbers list, your long-distance calls don't count towards air time.)

[homer1475]

I always input phone numbers into my contact list with 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx, if I need it it will use it, if I'm in my area code and don't need the 1+area code it just doesn't use it(old habits from old phones).

[kpbutton]

The funny part of this thread is I want to be able to remove my prepend. I want to know when I am calling long distance since some areas in the GTA are long distance to me. I use a Torch on Bell and if I dial a number that is long distance (at least it worked on my old phone) it gave me a notice and then connected the call. It was a good way for me to track what long distance calls I make.

I think it is probably a carrier choice not nation.

[PatrickMJS]

I'm surprised this doesn't work properly on Telus. My Torch is on Rogers and like the other guys wrote, you go into the smart dialing screen and set the country code to:

"Canada (+1)"


plus you must enter your own area code "250" where it says "Area Code:"

plus make sure the "National Number Length" is set to 10.

Then hit your "escape" key and press "Save".

[TLS2000]

I had this same issue with Telus on the CDMA network when I lived in Calgary. I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked.

Adding a 1 to my contacts in my phone book automatically got me a message saying that the contact was local if it was local. Not adding the 1 made it so that anyone outside of my LCA wouldn't be able to be reached through the phone book.

Smart dialing didn't exist on the 8703e I was using at the time and it wouldn't have helped for a contact within the same area code that was long distance.

[anton-k]

Hmmm, I think it actually started to work for me. Before I didn't have the 250 in the area code field in Smart Dialing, but when I added it yesterday I thought it still wasn't working. But I think what I did was test to see if it would add the 250 if I just dialed 7 digits instead of 10 (which it didn't). I'll have to check again when I'm out of town.

Now when I tried dialing a long distance number, it gave me a long message saying something like "Please wait while we complete your call, long distance charges may apply" then some letter and number combination, then the whole thing in French, and then it looks like it connected.

[anton-k]

(BTW, I never actually do this in real life because I use the BudPhone app, which gives you free long-distance across Canada and also makes the +1 issue irrelevant. Plus, if you enter your local BudPhone number on your Telus favourite numbers list, your long-distance calls don't count towards air time.)

I had actually never heard of BudPhone until now, and it looks interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Victoria (where I live) or Nanaimo (where I often go and need to use long distance from). It looks like it's mostly useful for dialing long distance from your local area, instead of calling back home when you're out of town, unless it's really easy to change the local number you're dialing from the BudPhone app.

[piper975]

Can it just be a West Coast thing then or something...? Does it work for both dialing from your contact list AND if you just dial a number using the area code but not a 1 in front of it?

Anyone else having this issue, or is it just BC, or is it just M-E?

It's just you ...

I have a Torch - works
I am in Canada - works
I am on the West Coast - works
I am in BC - works
I am on Telus - works

[jeffh]

Hmmm, I think it actually started to work for me. Before I didn't have the 250 in the area code field in Smart Dialing, but when I added it yesterday I thought it still wasn't working. But I think what I did was test to see if it would add the 250 if I just dialed 7 digits instead of 10 (which it didn't). I'll have to check again when I'm out of town.

Now when I tried dialing a long distance number, it gave me a long message saying something like "Please wait while we complete your call, long distance charges may apply" then some letter and number combination, then the whole thing in French, and then it looks like it connected.

I think you just solved your problem. Enter all your numbers in Contacts with the full 10 digits, no prepended 1, and put your Area Code in the Smart Dialing setting.

[djbacher]

I am with Bell and my Torch always dials the LD automatically. Even pre Blackberry it dialed and told me i was making a long distance call

[PatrickMJS]

hey AntonK - YOU'RE WELCOME.

Think I was the FIRST to point out the need to insert the area code in the options for "smart dialing".

[anton-k]

Thanks PatrickMJS! JeffH said something similar when he said to make sure all the "codes" were filled in. I guess my testing was a little faulty which is why it ended up being so dragged out. But hopefully someone else learned something from this too

[janos2808]

I had actually never heard of BudPhone until now, and it looks interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Victoria (where I live) or Nanaimo (where I often go and need to use long distance from). It looks like it's mostly useful for dialing long distance from your local area, instead of calling back home when you're out of town, unless it's really easy to change the local number you're dialing from the BudPhone app.

Yes, it's easy to change your local area. When you make a call, it asks you whether you are in your default location and if you respond "No" then a list of other locations comes up and you can select one. However, there might not be any point to doing this in your situation because the app eliminates long-distance charges, not roaming charges.