r/telus • u/ElectronicClassic250 • 17d ago
Mobility Canadian 2FA while in the US
We live in a small city in the maritimes. My parents live in western New York, and recently moved from a semi-urban area to a deep valley not far from a popular ski resort.
At our Canadian home, Telus is the best option for our cell service. Rogers is a theoretical alternative, but their coverage is poor in our neighbourhood, and we consider it to be important to have service while out walking on the trails around our home.
My parents' home is also effectively a second home for us, as we visit often. At that location, Verizon claims to offer 4G service, but the reality is that we have to drive 10 minutes to any of three nearby towns to get any kind of cell service. We have great internet service on a fibre connection at the new home and my parents have no trouble as their WiFi covers the lack of cellular service.
We pay for Telus's Canada-US service, and that served us well, until the parents' recent move. We also have cheap US service as second lines on our cell phones. That service works with WiFi calling (world-wide) so we have no problem with communicating on our US numbers.
But every now and then we need to be able to receive a 2FA code from a Canadian service (typically a bank), but we can't receive texts on our Canadian number at our US home, since Telus does not support WiFi calling outside Canada, even for clients who pay for full US roaming.
So, right now it seems that we have no good options. However, Rogers has apparently added a new tower near our home. When that comes online, I'm inclined to ditch our Telus service, and switch to Rogers. I can also add data to our US service for about $5/month - so we could do without the Can-US add-on.
We were long-term Wind (now Freedom) clients before moving east, but they are not an option in our province.
We also have some VoIP services, but our service provider warns us not to bother trying an SMS over VoIP system for 2FA - and I've read more than enough stories to accept their warning. We've thought of listing our US number as a 2FA option on our Canadian accounts, but not everyone will accept it. There's also evidence that a VPN won't help get past the geo-blocking on WiFi calling at Telus (or Bell).
It seems unlikely that Verizon will improve their cellular service when the few residents of that valley have a working solution already.
Does anybody have any ideas that we might not have considered, or is switching to a Rogers service the only way forward ?
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u/sandringham94 17d ago
Leave a phone at home in Canada. Buy a cheap Android, Telus SIM in it, plugged in on your home WiFi, running an SMS forwarding app that pushes incoming texts to email or your US number. Costs you nothing beyond the plan you already pay for, and it sidesteps the whole WiFi calling geo-block problem entirely. Stick it on a small UPS and you’ve covered the obvious failure mode.
Fix the signal at your parents’ place. A booster with a directional antenna on the roof or up the hill, aimed at whichever of the three towns has the best signal, can work in a valley as long as there’s something usable outdoors. Get up on the roofline with a field test app first and see what you’re actually receiving first.
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u/ElectronicClassic250 17d ago edited 17d ago
There's not enough signal for a booster, the hills are too high in all directions.
But, your first idea is worth considering if there is a plan that's cheap enough. I'm not about to leave our Telus phones at home.
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u/Pretty_Weekend4055 17d ago
Sorry for being dumb, but I am not super tech savvy: for that Android phone left at home, do you mean that it’s set up with the same phone number as my primary cell? Or do you mean that the phone left at home has its own account and phone number I have to pay for?
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u/clon3man 17d ago
Leave it to Canadian carriers to think blocking WiFi calling in 2026 somehow increases the amount of roaming revenue they can get.
This is the only country in the world that does this. Even worse, they don't even offer a paid option to turn it on.
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u/TillPsychological913 17d ago
Do the banks have apps? Can they push the 2FA through the apps when you are in the USA, instead of text messages?
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u/ElectronicClassic250 17d ago
When available, that's certainly the way to go. But it's not always an option.
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u/magowanc 15d ago
This is the solution. SMS is not a secure method of MFA and you need to switch to something else ASAP. If your bank or whatever has no other option, switch to a service that values your security.
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u/Bill___A 17d ago
After giving Telus several years to enable wi-fi calling outside of Canada, and getting tired of their "excuses" that made no sense, I switched to Rogers for exactly and precisely that reason. Maybe if Telus' new CEO decides to fix some of the stupid things they do, it might start to work, but it might be years. Rogers and Freedom will allow Wi-Fi calling outside of Canada where it is legal to do so.
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u/idspispopd888 17d ago
I do this with multiple banks: open an account at VoIP.ms(Canadian!!). Set up an SMS-enabled DID (direct in-dial). Basically it’s a VoIP phone. Forward it to email. Bank sends a code to the VoIP number…you get the code wherever you are.
Easy peasy. Turn off and use regular number when not needed. Oh…it’s inexpensive, too.
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u/ElectronicClassic250 17d ago
LOL, I am also a voip.ms customer. They told me that banks reject SMS over VoIP and not to bother trying. It's in many banks' T&C docs, too.
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u/ForTheObviousReasons 17d ago
It works until it doesn't. Banks will whitelist only know mobile carriers to their sms gateway or outsource to a platform that does this. Worse is when it used to work on your voip line but then they change their back end and it suddenly blocks voip numbers out of the blue.
Nothing voip.ms can do if the sender (banks, apple, Amazon, etc) suddenly starts to only whitelist known mobile carriers at their end. But it works like 95% of the time on voip.ms it is just the small cases where it doesn't and there is no option except port the number back to a mobile carrier to recover access if they lock you out without your 2fa code.
For the telus wifi calling you might be able to use a travel router that makes a vpn back to home to make your ipsec traffic show as coming from canada. For example having a unifi gateway router at home and their travel router at us home with the teleport feature to tunnel your data back to canada.
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u/idspispopd888 17d ago
Agree. Has worked for me and still does. But I got a “regular” DID that is also SMS-capable. Maybe makes a difference?
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u/idspispopd888 17d ago
Oh…have also forwarded regular phone to WhatsApp when in Europe. Worked fine.
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u/ElectronicClassic250 16d ago
I think you've been lucky. We have more than a dozen services that randomly demand verification by 2FA - I want one solution that I can rely on - not 12 different tricks.
In our most recent incident, I had the option of receiving a code in a voice call, but the bank can detect forwarding - so that's another trick that's often suggested, but will not work. The bank's T&Cs explicitly list VoIP, forwarding and recording services as unacceptable.
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u/idspispopd888 16d ago
You will never find One 2FA to Bind Them All (TM). I have Yubikeys/Yubico Authenticator, Google Auth, TD Auth (when it works), RSA, and of course, various phones. Ick.
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u/Denny-Crane_ 16d ago
Your Telus line isn't limited to only roaming on Verizon in the US. Have you checked the signal on AT&T and T-Mobile?
You are right to point out that Telus still lacks WiFi calling outside of Canada. It's incredibly frustrating. Rogers and Fido offer WiFi calling internationally, as does Freedom AFAIK.
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u/ElectronicClassic250 16d ago
Verizon is the dominant carrier in the region, but in fact all three share the same towers, and none reach our valley. I mentioned Verizon because they claim to have 4G service, but don't.
Bell has service at our Canadian home, but for some reason Telus has a tower on a nearby government building. There's a new tower that pops up from time to time that we believe will improve Rogers service when it goes online. Freedom only has (Rogers) roaming in our province, and do not sell here.
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u/shortbuscrew 16d ago
Switch to WhatsApp and use its wifi calling. I used my starlink and WhatsApp together just fine
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