Number porting to GV - my experience

[wyt168]

Lastly remember that when you do the port with google your T-mobile account number that you give them is 1 + "your new T-mobile # (ie. the # you are porting)". T-mobile changes your account number from "1 + original T-mobile #" once the port is complete. Lastly right after you initiate the google port expect an immediate email saying there is an error with the port. You will need to go to google voice and it will bring you to a page where they want you to input your T-mobile prepaid pin #, and then it take ~24hrs to complete.

johng

Thanks for the clarification that the t-mobile account # is "1 + ported landline #" AFTER the porting is done, i.e. if your original pre-paid t-mobile # is xxx-xxx-xxxx and the land line # being ported is yyy-yyy-yyyy, your account # after the porting will be "1yyyyyyyyyy" instead of "1xxxxxxxxxx".
In fact, the help page on Obihai  "Landline Porting to Google Voice" http://obihai.com/porttutorial.html states the exact opposite, i.e. they are saying that you should use the original t-mobile # for the pre-paid account #.

[jazzy]

Long time ATT, SBC, Pacific Bell land line customer in the 415 with a legacy prefix that I wanted to keep.  Followed the porting instructions, and my legacy prefix is now a GV number.

Monday – Activated a T-Mobile pre paid sim card on the internet.  After verifying the number works incoming and outgoing, called T-Mobile porting department at 1-877-789-3106 and requested a port in from a land line.

Tuesday – At 5pm my ATT land line # was ported to the T-mobile cell phone.  Verified calling in and out.

Wed – 7am logged into my GV account and requested the T-Mobile # be ported to my GV. The T-mobile account number is " 1 (area code, number) for a total of  11 digits.  Immediately after paying the $20 porting charge.  I received an email, saying " there is an error with the port ".  Just clicked the link in the email, and a screen will ask for your T-mobile prepaid PIN.  Submit it, and you're done.

Thurs – At 7am ( exactly 24 hours after porting request ), I received an email saying, porting was complete.  My old ATT legacy number now is now my GV number. 

To summarize, activated the T-mobile sim on a Monday, and Thursday porting was completed to GV.  So now my Obi receives and makes calls using GV, and I rescued my legacy number!

When GV asks for your T-Mobile account number, it is the " the newly ported in number from the land line , not the number assigned when you first activate the sim card.

[primetymepro]

I suppose that this could work with any carrier this read refers to AT&T whereas I'm in the process but via My existing carrier T-Mobile. I'll report back my experience and timeline...

How To Port Your Vonage Phone Number to Google Voice
by RONMALIBU on 2011/08/12

Vonage is a great service – VoIP for cheap with international calls thrown in – that's why I selected it for my business line a few years back. Now I've switched to Skype and Google Voice, and this is the process to port from Vonage to Google Voice.

Port your Vonage number to AT&T. I chose AT&T as I already had a Go Phone which I give to international visitors. I did this in the AT&T store, and they took care of it all for me for a $25 sim card. Keep the receipt or make a note of your AT&T account number. This put me on a 3 month / 10c per minute plan so I could receive calls in the interim. The process took about 48 hours to complete.
Sign up for google voice, and select the option to port an existing number to google voice. There are a few disclosures about 3 potential days of lost SMS messages, and you pay a one time $20 porting fee. The trick here is finding your AT&T account number, which is not the same as your phone number. I threw away my receipt, so I had to call 611 from my Go Phone to talk to find it out.
Wait 24 hours.
Enjoy free call forwarding and google voicemail services. The switch cost me $45, and I no longer pay my $30 a month Vonage bill. It would have been cheaper to add a line to my existing cell phone service for a month (around $10 rather than $25), but this way kept everything simple for me, and simplicity goes a long way when you're talking about transferring your business number and not losing calls!

[rtalcott]

I just went from AT&T wireless to GV....it was smooth....only FYI is the AT&T/GV port took 48 hours and not the 24 that GV estimated.
rt

[Dale]

I ported from ViaTalk to T-mobile on a $10 pay as you go set up. The ViaTalk account number is the same as your 11 digit phone number. (Note this means you should never let slip that you use ViaTalk to anyone who know your phone number if you think your number is worth stealing!)

Porting from T-Mobile to Google Voice to a few days. $20.

So total cost $30 to port a number. Funny how we have been paying number portability fees to telephone companies for years and we still have to fork out money to get it done... another reason I am glad to not be using a traditional telephone company.

[aot2002]

I did this with tracfone and it was successful and simple took 2 days for tracfone and 24 hours for google voice to grab it from tracfone.
Purchased 9 dollar tracfone with 10 minutes of voice included.

[foodtours]

if i get a t-mobile phone, do i still need to unlock it for the landline phone number transfer to google voice? Thanks.

[Judgeless]

This might sound foolish but I did not understand why you had to use T-Mobile until today.  It is because Google Voice will only port from a cell phone provider.  I wish this was mentioned in the first post.  I would have ordered the SIM card the day I ordered the OBI110.

[jimates]

T-Mobile currently has the prepaid sim cards for $2.99 with free shipping. Use with any unlocked gsm phone.

ncludes 10 minutes starter airtime
Includes 10 minutes of starter airtime with nationwide calling, voicemail, messaging, and more

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/T-Mobile-Prepaid-SIM-Activation-Kit

[MrGadget]

PHASE 1
I'm preparing to port my landline from Qwest/Centurylink to GV.
First, my porting is a little different than a normal landline port, I think. The landline has my DSL attached to it (not under contract). Since I wasn't sure what would happen when I removed the phone line from the DSL, I called Centurylink to see what I should do.

I was told that I shouldn't do anything special, just perform the port to a cell provider (he then tried to sell/port me Verizon cell service) and the DSL will become a (Naked) Pure Broadband DSL service. Also, I could either keep my current pricing (price for life), or pay $1.00 less and gamble the price does not change in the future. I kept my current pricing.

I took advantage of the T-Mobile SIM Activation Starter kit for $2.99 with free shipping. Since I had T-mobile in the past, I should be able to use an old phone for the temporary porting process. (Thanks Jimates for the heads up)

Now I am waiting for the SIM to arrive. Once I get the SIM, I'll activate and contact GV to port the number, preferably on a Friday or Saturday to avoid any business calls that could chew up my 10 minute T-Mobile starter.

I'll update my status once I move on to PHASE 2 of my GV activation and porting. If anybody has already performed a migration from a Phone/DSL connection, I would be interested in hearing about your results.

Stay tuned.

[Judgeless]

My port is not going as easy as the first post.

A week ago I ordered 2 SIMs from T-Mobile for $2.99 each.  I selected free 2 day shipping.  It took a day to process the order and I received an email claiming the estimated delivery will be Jan 21st.  I could not wait so I went to a local T-Mobile store and paid $10 for a SIM.

Two days ago after I got the SIM I called the T-Mobile Transfer center and gave them all the info.  They told me the transfer should take 24 to 48 hours.  After 48 hours it was not working so I called T-Mobile and the lady told me that when you port a land line it can take 7-10 business days. 

[MrGadget]

I took advantage of the T-Mobile SIM Activation Starter kit for $2.99 with free shipping. Since I had T-mobile in the past, I should be able to use an old phone for the temporary porting process. (Thanks Jimates for the heads up)

Now I am waiting for the SIM to arrive. Once I get the SIM, I'll activate and contact GV to port the number, preferably on a Friday or Saturday to avoid any business calls that could chew up my 10 minute T-Mobile starter.

Well, I am STILL waiting for the T-Mobile SIM to arrive, 9 days later. Perhaps it was a scam. I sure hope the treatment Judgeless received is not the normal now for porting.

Anybody have any experience converting Landline/DSL to NAKED? How did it go? Any gotchas to watch for?

[donslade]

It took mine 10 days to arrive from T-Mobile.  You can check status via the order number they provided and the T-mobile email link they sent.

My porting experience has been great so far.  T-Mobile was very quick to port my Time-Warner Digital Phone number to them in about 36 hours after my initial request.  Now I'm waiting on the port to Google.

The OBi100 interfce is working great with my existing GV number.

[Judgeless]

It 14 days for me to get the SIM.  It has been 7 days since I started the process with T-Mobile to transfer my Windstream land line phone number.  I talk to T-Mobile every day.  Each day there is another reason on why it failed.   It is Windstreams fault.  I am not going to give up.

[Rick]

My port from AT&T to T-Mobile to GV took a total of 5 days, 4 of them for the AT&T portion.  A "simple port" is required by FCC regulations to take 24 hours.  AT&T is now investigating the FCC complaint I filed due to their delay, they approved the port in a day and then made me sit 3 more days.  T-Mobile to AT&T took EXACTLY 24 hours, to the minute.

[FM9295]

Anybody have any idea whether it's possible to do the reverse of all this (say worst case scenario--GV starts charging a bunch for service or OBi disappears from the landscape).  Can a GV number be ported back to a mobile (and, potentially to another landline)?

[infin8loop]

Anybody have any idea whether it's possible to do the reverse of all this (say worst case scenario--GV starts charging a bunch for service or OBi disappears from the landscape).  Can a GV number be ported back to a mobile (and, potentially to another landline)?

You can port out of Google Voice but you have to "unlock" the number at GV first.

Details here: http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1316844

Also note: There is a one time $3 fee to port your number away from Google Voice. For users who ported their mobile numbers into Google Voice, the fee is waived.

Update: Checking my Google issued GV number (I did not port it into Google) at voip.ms:
Our initial review indicates that the ratecenter Dallas is portable to our network.
I could be wrong, but I doubt most voip providers would require the GV number be ported to a mobile number before porting it to their network -- if they accept ports for the ratecenter the GV number is in.       

[LifeHub]

Encountering a GV problem...

I did not have any problem porting landline to the T-Mo prepaid on old Moto Razr.  T-Mo with new # can now call out and receive most calls, except receive from GV.  It can call out to GV without any problem.  T-Mo support has verified that the porting is completed properly and they did not see any problem on their end.  This prevents the porting to GV to go through, because the verification call to enter the 2 digit cannot be completed.

Has anybody else run into this issue?  Or does anybody else have any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[Rick]

Encountering a GV problem...

I did not have any problem porting landline to the T-Mo prepaid on old Moto Razr.  T-Mo with new # can now call out and receive most calls, except receive from GV.  It can call out to GV without any problem.  T-Mo support has verified that the porting is completed properly and they did not see any problem on their end.  This prevents the porting to GV to go through, because the verification call to enter the 2 digit cannot be completed.

Has anybody else run into this issue?  Or does anybody else have any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

What if you go into GV and use it to call your landline number.  Does the landline work?

If it cannot receive calls from GV, one option might be to forward the T-Mobile number to another number.  GV calls it to verify, the other phone rings, you enter the code...

[LifeHub]

No, if I call the ported landline from GV physically, the call just dies.  I even tried to call landline from gmail and the same problem occurs with "network error".  I have reported the issue to Google, but so far no response.  I sure hope T-Mo has not blocked incoming calls from GV.

I realize I can port it to another provider, but at this point I just want to see if there is any other options.

What if you go into GV and use it to call your landline number.  Does the landline work?

If it cannot receive calls from GV, one option might be to forward the T-Mobile number to another number.  GV calls it to verify, the other phone rings, you enter the code...