Using a free Fongo number for your apartment buzzer

Ask on the Public Mobile or Koodo community, or on RedFlagDeals, why the lobby panel cannot reach your phone. Somebody will tell you to get a free Fongo number and give that to the building.

It is decent advice for one kind of reader and the wrong advice for another. Everything below about Fongo comes from Fongo's own website and help centre, as I read them on September 30, 2026. A free service can change its rules, so check them yourself.

Do you need a number for yourself, or one for the whole apartment?

These are two different problems, and the forum threads mix them up. The first is that your buzzer never rings at all. You kept a number from another city, and the building line only makes local calls. The panel dials, nothing happens, and sometimes the visitor hears a recording saying the call cannot be completed. Any local number fixes that.

The second is that your buzzer rings, but only on one phone. The entry panel stores one phone number per unit. Your food is in the lobby and the one person whose phone rings is on the subway. Swapping in a different single number does not fix that.

BuzzMeBro is built for the second problem. Your apartment gets its own local number, which takes care of the first problem too. You hand it to the building once. When a visitor buzzes, every phone registered to the apartment rings at the same time, up to 4 of them. Whoever answers first gets the call and can open the door. The buzz arrives as an ordinary phone call, so there is nothing to install. The price is $9.99 a month or $95.00 a year for the whole apartment, not per person.

What do you get with a free Fongo number, according to Fongo's own pages?

Fongo Mobile is a calling app. Here is what its website and help centre said when I checked.

• You choose a new phone number for free during signup, from a list of more than 950 Canadian locations. Toronto is on the list with a 647 number.
• The free features include voicemail, caller ID and call forwarding. Fongo says advertisements are what keep the free service free.
• The app needs an internet connection to make or receive calls. That can be Wi-Fi or cellular data. Fongo recommends a speed of at least 2 Mbps.
• A new account takes about 48 hours to activate. Fongo warns that you may not be able to receive calls during that time.
• You can be signed in on one device at a time. Fongo says calls do not arrive properly if one account is signed in on two.

When is a free Fongo number the right fix for a buzzer?

When you live alone, your buzzer fails because your number is from another area, and you are willing to look after the account. In that case, try Fongo before you pay anybody, me included.

That is the only case. The day a partner or a roommate also needs to answer the door, you are back to the one-number limit, and that is the problem BuzzMeBro exists to solve.

What can stop a Fongo number from opening your door?

The account goes dormant and the number is deleted

This is the one that catches people months later. Fongo's dormant account policy counts an account as dormant after 30 days with no outgoing call and no paid add-on. Incoming calls do not count. Forwarded calls do not count. So a number you only use for the buzzer is dormant by design.

The policy says an account with no calling credits is subject to automatic deletion at 120 days of inactivity. Fongo says it sends warnings by email and text first.

Your building knows none of this. The panel keeps dialling the number it was given, and you find out when a courier leaves.

The app is offline when the courier arrives

A buzz to a Fongo number is a call over the internet to an app. If your phone has no Wi-Fi and no data at that moment, the app cannot ring.

The building line hides its caller ID

Fongo blocks anonymous, private and unknown callers by default. Some building lines show up exactly that way. Turn that setting off before your first test.

You press the door digit and nothing happens

The door opens because a keypad tone travels back down the call to the panel. The digit is usually 9, but your building sets it. Fongo's help centre has an article for tone commands that are ignored on a call. The fix it gives is to contact support and ask them to enable DTMF dialing on your account.

Fongo also has a help article on apartment door buzzers, written for its home phone product. It says Fongo does not officially support these systems and makes no promise that they will work. Treat the app the same way and test it from the lobby.

Can a Fongo number ring your roommate too?

Partly. Fongo's call forwarding has a mode called Simultaneous. The Fongo app and a forwarding number ring at the same time. A free account can forward to one number, and it has to be a Canadian one. Fongo says its paid add-on, Fongo Plus, raises that to four numbers.

So a free Fongo number can reach two people, with conditions. Fongo states that it is not intended to be used primarily as a call forwarding service. Forwarding is switched off on the 31st day of dormancy. Miss one monthly call and the buzzer is back to ringing a single app.

Fongo's pages do not say whether a door digit pressed on the forwarded phone reaches the lobby panel. Test that phone on its own before you count on it.

It also leaves one person holding the account. When that person moves out, the buzzer goes with them. BuzzMeBro is billed per apartment, and every phone gets an ordinary call. More on ringing two phones at once.

How do you test a Fongo number before you give it to your building?

Changing the number in the lobby panel means a request to management and a wait. Test first, so you only ask once.

1. Pick a number that is local to your building Choose your own city at signup. If you are not sure what counts as local, ask management.
2. Wait two days Fongo says a new account takes about 48 hours to activate.
3. Turn off anonymous call blocking In the app, open Account, then Settings, then Blocked Numbers, and disable Block Anonymous Calls.
4. Call it from a different phone and press the door digit Answer in the app, press the digit your building uses, and listen on the other phone for the tone. If there is none, ask Fongo support to enable DTMF dialing.
5. Give the number to the building Send management your unit and the new number in writing. How to change the number on your buzzer.
6. Test from the lobby with the phone locked Once on home Wi-Fi and once on data. A call that only arrives while the app is open is not a working buzzer.
7. Set the 30-day reminder One answered outgoing call every 30 days, for as long as you live there.

If the door still does not open from the lobby, stop adjusting settings. A buzz that arrives as an ordinary phone call is the simpler route, and that is what BuzzMeBro provides.

Should you use Fongo or BuzzMeBro for your buzzer?

Count the people who need to answer the door. If it is more than one, start with BuzzMeBro: one local number for the apartment and up to 4 phones ringing together. A local number is checked when you sign up, and a building with none available goes on a waitlist, so I cannot promise yours is covered.

The price buys one thing. The subscription is the only thing BuzzMeBro is paid for, it runs no advertising, and its privacy policy says customer data is never sold. When you are ready, check your building at signup.