Number porting to GV - my experience
CoalMinerRetired:
pc44,
Here's a good write-up from the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), which is the quasi-governmental/industry clearing house and administrator for Local Number Portability (LNP): http://www.npac.com/number-portability/the-npac-neustar-lnp
Two other links from that website:
How LNP Works: http://www.npac.com/number-portability/how-lnp-works - scroll down to the section titled Steps in the LNP Porting Process.
Local Number Portability:http://www.npac.com/number-portability - a few good descriptions on this page.
What this all means to me is LNP is mandated by, and terms and conditions are dictated by the feds. In particular the FCC. Phone companies live and die by govt regulations, and for the most part when the FCC dictates the phone cos fall in line and do as told. I've heard it described as, it's not pretty but it works.
knave:
Thanks all for this thread! Porting number from Vonage to T-Mobile prepaid was very smooth for me, 2 business days start to finish. T-Mobile to GV was even easier, only had to wait 24 hours, without having to talk to a human.
And the T-Mobile SIM cards are only $0.99 with free shipping right now, and since they don't expire for ~3 years, so I bought an extra one just in case....
CoalMinerRetired:
Quote from: knave on August 17, 2012, 11:34:52 am
And the T-Mobile SIM cards are only $0.99 with free shipping right now, and since they don't expire for ~3 years, so I bought an extra one just in case....
I did the same. If you want to be ultra cheap about it, someone in a T-Mob store said "we give them free to current customers." So if you can get into a store during that 24 to 48 hour period when you are a current customer (the time when your landine is on a T-Mobile cell phone), you can perhaps get a free one, for future use.
I also found out the T-Mob stores charge more than the listed price on the T-mob website. Website has them marked down from $6.99 to 0.99, but T-Mob retail store charge $10 or $12, explanation was 'we charge more than the web site.'
truelies:
Requested port to tmobile last night, nothing happened until now. Maybe they don't do port at weekend?
I heard some number can't be ported to GV. If the number can't port, will Google refund me the $20 fee? $20 for porting a number is not cheap.
CoalMinerRetired:
Quote from: truelies on August 18, 2012, 02:09:13 pm
Requested port to tmobile last night, nothing happened until now. Maybe they don't do port at weekend?
I heard some number can't be ported to GV. If the number can't port, will Google refund me the $20 fee? $20 for porting a number is not cheap.
When you port from TMob to GV, the GV setup process first checks 'number eligibility', and only if your number can be ported are you prompted to pay the $20 fee. Which only makes sense, why would someone or something charge you for a service they cannot provide. If you search, some people have taken screen images of the process, which is quick and painless, IME.
You do bring up a point, you do not know if your landline will port to GV until you get it ported to TMob. You've take a small leap of faith in going landline to TMob.
So what are the options if TMob cannot port to GV? Several: 1) Port to some other low cost VoIP providers (CallCentric, voip.ms, Skype, etc., etc) or 2) port back to your landline provider, or 3) port to some other landline provider. Form what I read, the only providers that charge you for porting are GV and the VoIP providers. Cellular providers and landline providers do not charge to port in or out, they can if they choose to do so, and there are probably some rare exceptions that do charge.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page