$60/month Business Line, Cable company won't port phone number, need advice

[ktcc]

Hi, I'm trying to port my landline business phone number (costing about $60/month for 1 line, $150/month phone & internet) to a mobile carrier but the cable company won't port unless it's a business line. Anyone have experience with this. I was thinking I'll open a sprint business line for a month then transfer the number. I'm ultimately looking to get on google voice because I can text with the number and it's free. I tried to port the number to a prepaid verizon line but it keeps getting denied because it's not a "business line"

Anyone have advice/experience dealing with a cable company that won't port number. Also will sprint business port the line to google voice or any other voip service?

[ktcc]

I've used google voice as second line and it's been flawless and I want to have google voice on both lines.

[A_Friend]

Is your end target to move your number to a cellphone?  Or is that an intermediate move to Google Voice?

Would the cable company prevent you from moving to a landline/voip service unless it was a business service?

[SteveInWA]

Is your end target to move your number to a cellphone?  Or is that an intermediate move to Google Voice?

Would the cable company prevent you from moving to a landline/voip service unless it was a business service?

Seriously, stop the ignorant, useless posts.  The cable company is misinformed, to put it mildly.  FCC regulations require that carriers make their numbers available to be ported out to any carrier that can accept the number.  It's none of their business what type of service is selected.

I already posted this correct answer in the OP's duplicate thread.

[ktcc]

I eventually want to go to google voice but the cable company won't port to "non business" line. I spent hours trying to port it over but they kept saying they only port to business lines. So I am going to try to port to sprint business as they have a $15/month plan for business.

Unless you could let me know how I can convince the cable company to release my number to a prepaid verizon plan I have been trying to port to. They say business lines do not follow port rules for non business phones.

[A_Friend]

I'm wondering if you could port out to a "soho" business voip service.  Many years ago, I ported a residential number to Nextiva, which was technically a business service.  When I ported it out to Callcentric, they didn't give me any trouble.  For that matter, I'm wondering if Callcentric and Voip.ms would qualify as business services.  They each have elaborate tool kits (digital receptionist scripting, extensions, mailboxes, etc.) for building phone services for small offices.

[SteveInWA]

Well, you can tell them that you are going to file a complaint with the FCC.  That'll get their attention.

Google Voice is a poor choice for business use.  Please check out the two companies I recommended:  Dialpad and Ringcentral.  If their prices scare you away, consider that you get what you pay for, in terms of service quality and customer support.  If all you want is basic telephone service with voicemail and DIY configuration, Callcentric or voip.ms are good choices.  Bottom line, all four of these service providers are "business" providers, so that blows away the cable company's argument.

[ktcc]

OK, thank you. Maybe getting it blocked was a blessing in disguise. Reading up on it, maybe google voice isn't the best for the line. I will check out your recommendations and update as I go. Trying to lower overhead and any of those listed would be great and I'll not be supporting the monopoly phone company.

[SteveInWA]

Good plan.

With regard to the mechanics of porting, you will be porting a land line number to another land line carrier (which might have been what your cable company meant).  Land line ports follow a different and more complex process than simple mobile<--> ports.  This is partly due to legacy FCC Local Number Portability (LNP) regulations, that were enacted in an attempt to prevent bad actors from stealing people's phone numbers (porting them away without the customer's permission).  The procedure involves both the "losing" carrier (cable co.) and the "gaining" carrier (whichever carrier you select).  You give the gaining carrier authority to act as your agent, (this is known as a LOA or Letter of Agency).  The gaining carrier then requests to the losing carrier, that they unlock/release that number for porting out, and they provide some authentication information (typically your account number and service address and optionally a PIN).  The losing carrier checks to confirm that the authentication info is valid, and, if so, they release the number and establish a "Firm Order Commitment" or FOC date.  After that point, it is all up to the gaining carrier to take the number and re-route calls, effective on the negotiated FOC date/time.

[ktcc]

The cable company told me it was a service class error and that business phones could only be ported to business phones. It was the policy of the cable company to not port business lines out due to them being classified differently and more bs. 3 different agents told me the same thing.

Anyways I signed up for dialpad and we'll see if I can get the set up started tomorrow. My business is pretty simple with 2 lines and 1 location. I appreciate all your guys help.

[ktcc]

An Update: Cable company still refuses to port over number and I have filed a complaint with the FCC. I want to get this finished as it's taking up too much time. Dialpad appears to be pretty clueless as well as they take many hours to respond to messages and offer no chat/phone support. They also said the obi202 I had would not work and needed a obi302 so I bought one of those.

Hope to have some good news on my next report.

[drgeoff]

An Update: Cable company still refuses to port over number and I have filed a complaint with the FCC. I want to get this finished as it's taking up too much time. Dialpad appears to be pretty clueless as well as they take many hours to respond to messages and offer no chat/phone support. They also said the obi202 I had would not work and needed a obi302 so I bought one of those.

Hope to have some good news on my next report.

An OBi202 can do everything that a 302 can do.

[SteveInWA]

An Update: Cable company still refuses to port over number and I have filed a complaint with the FCC. I want to get this finished as it's taking up too much time. Dialpad appears to be pretty clueless as well as they take many hours to respond to messages and offer no chat/phone support. They also said the obi202 I had would not work and needed a obi302 so I bought one of those.

Hope to have some good news on my next report.

An OBi202 can do everything that a 302 can do.

The "you need a 302" answer was from Dialpad, and it's understandable (even though bogus) that they would say so, because they operate a managed service, and they probably push a configuration to the devices, and they don't expect that their customers would be using more than their service.

Keep us updated with regard to the FCC complaint, and good luck.

[ktcc]

OK, finally got the port to go through. I filed the complaint with the fcc and it took them about a week to start looking into it. Also, "coincidentally" the same day the fcc contacted the cable company the port went through and they have been super nice calling me a few times to see if I needed any more help. So it appears that the FCC has some pull with local companies.

As for dialpad it's been working well. Lots of features I probably won't use and it's running more than I thought ($27/month). The only issue is I have a obi302 running dialpad and an obi200 running google voice as a back office line and somehow they both got merged. I am receiving calls and texts from my google voice line to come up on dialpad. It's odd but appears to be working.

Also dialpad customer service is pretty terrible. They take sometimes over a day to reply to an email and give no real answer. I think they want everyone to figure it out on their own.

Thanks for the help in getting my line ported.