Calling family abroad over the holidays with your home phone

For many families in Quebec, the holidays also mean calling parents, brothers and sisters or grandparents who live in another country. A call like that takes a little preparation: the right number, the right time, and enough minutes so you are not cut off in the middle of your wishes. Here are the simple steps, before the big day.

How to call abroad from Quebec

From a Canadian line, a call to another country is always dialled in the same order:

1. 011, the code that sends the call out of Canada;
2. the country code (for example 33 for France, 32 for Belgium);
3. the person's number, usually without the leading 0 dialled locally.

To call a relative in France, for example, you dial 011, then 33, then their number without the first 0. The United States are the exception: they share the same numbering system as Canada. So you dial 1, the area code and the number, without 011.

A practical tip: write the family's full numbers on a sheet near the phone, or save them in your handset. On the day of the party, nobody wants to look up a country code.

Choosing the right time

The time difference is often the real challenge. In December, Paris is 6 hours ahead of Montréal: a call at 6 p.m. here, on Christmas Eve, reaches them at midnight. For a country in Asia, the gap can be more than 10 hours, and your evening falls in the middle of their night.

The simplest way is to agree on the time in advance, by text message or email. You are sure to find everyone together, and you avoid waking up a grandmother at 3 a.m.

Checking that the country is included

Before the big day, check that your line can reach the country you want to call, and on what terms. On a Club Internet line, calls within Canada are unlimited and toll-free numbers are open. For the rest of the world, there are two options:

• Calls to the Americas ($5 per month): 250 minutes per month to the United States and 10 countries in the Americas. It is already included in the Canada and United States plan.
• World Calls ($10 per month): 250 minutes per month to 65 countries on every continent, including the United States and the Americas.

The exact list of countries is on the Phone page. Read it carefully: for some countries, the note “landlines only” means that cell phones in that country are not included. If your relatives only have a cell phone, ask them for a landline number, or check before counting on that call.

Planning enough minutes

A holiday call often lasts longer than you think: the handset goes to the children, then to the cousins, then to the aunt who just arrived. Do a quick calculation: the number of people to call, multiplied by the length of each call. Three 30-minute calls already make 90 minutes in the same evening.

Two rules to know on a Club Internet line:

• Each call abroad is limited to 30 minutes. If the conversation goes on, simply call back.
• When the World Calls minutes run out, calls abroad stop until a top-up of 250 minutes ($10), added to your bill. For the Calls to the Americas option, each extra block of 250 minutes costs $5.

You know you will talk a lot in December? Add the option one or two weeks before the holidays, rather than on the evening itself, so everything is ready.

Good call quality

A phone line over the Internet goes through your connection. For clear sound during the party:

• keep the phone adapter plugged into the modem or router with a cable;
• if several people are watching videos at the same time, quality can drop on a low speed: our article on the speed test helps you see where you stand;
• have a charged handset ready, and a second one if the whole family wants to talk at once.

With an Internet plan with unlimited data, holiday video calls do not count against a data limit either.

Features that help

Three-way calling lets you bring two people into the same call, for example a brother in Laval and a sister in the United States, to share your wishes together. Voicemail keeps messages from people who call while you are already on the line, and call waiting lets you know about a second call. These features are included in Club Internet's home phone line. To better understand a landline over the Internet, read our article on the home phone.

Ready for the holidays

Our home phone service starts at $9.99 per month, with unlimited calling anywhere in Canada, no contract, and you can keep your current number. To be ready before December, check your address or place your order online. A question about the countries included? Call us at 1 833 541-2582, in English or French.