Confused about porting to Google Voice

[GeorgeR]

I'm trying to port my Vonage home number to Google Voice, to be used with my newly purchased OBi200.  I am following the steps in www.obihai.com/porttutorial.  I have completed steps 1-5, so my current status is:  I have a T-Mobile no-contract phone which now has my (formerly Vonage) home number ported to it.  I have not yet set up my OBi200.

Now Step 6 says "Go to your Google Voice account and request to port your T-Mobile number to Google Voice."  I have created a new Google Voice account (GV@mydomain.com) for this purpose.  But when I log into Google Voice with that account, the first thing it asks me to do is get a Google Voice number (which is not mentioned in Step 6 of the tutorial).  If I choose a new GV number, I will have to assign it to a mobile phone -- i.e. the T-Mobile that already has the number I want to port to GV!  (My regular cell phone already has a GV number on it which I use for work.)  How is this going to work?  Can I then ask Google to port my (formerly Vonage/now T-Mobile/soon to be OBi200) number to Google Voice?  Doesn't GV need a cell # to associate with your GV # so that it knows what phone to forward calls to?  Am I missing something here?  Do I choose a new GV # temporarily just so that I can get to the porting step?

Also, once I'm done and my home # has been ported to GV and connected to my OBi device, what's the status of my T-Mobile phone?  Does it no longer have a number?  Can I use it again to port another existing number to another OBi?

I've used Google Voice for many years, but something about this process is not making sense to me...??  Can someone tell me what I'm missing?

Thanks.

[GPz1100]

It's been a while since I set up our gv account, but from what I can recall, i let the system assign a temporary gv #. For validation, I used the number to be ported in (which also became a forwarding number).  That same number was then ported in, replacing the temp gv #.

After port in, the mobile sim/account will be canceled.

[drgeoff]

See http://www.obihai.com/tutorial1.  The ported in number will replace the initial number.

It is often recommended to use a someone@gmail.com type address but I don't know if that is absolutely necessary.

The T-Mobile SIM will be dead when the port is completed.  You can use the phone with another SIM either as a cellphone or to port another number to GV.