News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

FINALLY!!! savoring my accomplishment

Started by whitgallman, February 06, 2018, 04:41:14 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

whitgallman

FINALLY. I've got to share this so you will have a smoother journey.
The task was to set up a phone at my girl friend's house.  She wanted the number to be the one from her recently deceased parent's home.
Her parent's account was closed last May.
AT&T opened an account, using the number, in my name and her parent's address. Google Voice will not accept old land line numbers, only active mobile accounts.
At T-Mobile, an account was set up to port the number to a SIM card. A temp number was assigned the SIM card. T-mobile does a credit check, but I had frozen my credit reports after the Equifax data hack last year. I had to unfreeze all three major credit reports before T-Mobile would continue. AT&T ported the special number to T-Mobile SIM. Cost $26.81.
Google Voice requires an Active Mobile phone with the number being ported.
I had to put the T-Mobile SIM in a mobile phone.  I happened to have an ancient Sony Ericsson Walkman W518a, but it was locked to AT&T.  Back to AT&T to un-lock the ancient flip phone using a request form on their website.  Filled out the unlocking form with a long number from inside the phone.  Submitting the AT&T form returned a request number.  The next day, AT&T sent a message approving the unlocking, providing an unlocking key (another long number) and unlocking instructions.  Entered the numbers; a couple of tries needed.  I put the T-Mobile SIM card in the flip phone and after a few gyrations, the flip phone would answer to the special number.
Back in Google Voice, System; Phone; Legacy; was able to request that the special number be exchanged for the Google Voice generated number. Paid $20. You can check the number portage progress through your Google Voice account.  After a couple of days of anxious anticipation, Google Voice accepted the special number for it's account.  Then applied for the Anveo E911 service on line SP2; $25 on PayPal only.
The Google Voice portage acceptance from the T-Mobile SIM should have automatically closed the T-mobile account.

GPz1100

You should of used the prepaid arm of att (gophone).  No social security numbers or credit checks involved.  Same for tmobile, but ports are usually quicker/easier when doing an internal port of sorts (att --> att).  This would of also eliminated the unlocking headache with using a tmo sim in a att device.

whitgallman

Now you tell me. (but if it wasn't arduous and complicated, there would not have been as much love in the result)

GPz1100

About a year ago we moved from att pots service to gv.  In exploring options, what i described above seemed like the most direct path.  Interesting, the move from pots to att gophone took 4 or 5 business days to complete.  Lots of processing layers when a landline is involved.  From gophone to gv took exactly 24 hours.

Prior to the switch over we were using a temp # assigned by google to determine if the service would be satisfactory.  There were just a few changes needed after the port.  Enable the already verified callcentric NY DID as a forwarding option and disable google chat.  There may have been some other minor tweaks.  If callcentric was not involved at all then the move would be completely seamless. I can't think of anything that may need to be updated in the obi setup.