Number porting to GV - my experience

[ninhjo]

Hi.  My wife already has a T-Mobile phone, and I plan to borrow hers to port our AT&T home number to GV.  I already ordered a different T-Mobile sim.  If I remove the existing sim from her phone and use the new sim I just purchased for the porting process, would it have any effect on her sim or her T-Mobile account?  Thanks.

[jimates]

No.

[ninhjo]

No.

Thank you so much for your quick response.  I was afraid that her T-Mobile account would get canceled after the porting process.  So I guess the two sims would function independently even used on the same phone, right?

[Rick]

No.

Thank you so much for your quick response.  I was afraid that her T-Mobile account would get canceled after the porting process.  So I guess the two sims would function independently even used on the same phone, right?

Yes, same as the previous answer, although you asked it opposite from that one  .  The SIM provides the number / account identification to the network.

[velo.junkie]

I'm happy to report my POTS number port from AT&T (formerly SBC/Pacific Bell) to T-mobile and then to Google Voice was successful. I only ran into two hitches.

The first was with T-Mobile. The initial person I spoke with (before being sent to porting) said I needed my account PIN to port my number. I told him I didn't have one, that it was a landline, and he said to call AT&T and get it. I did and was told there wasn't a PIN associated with my account (but I could add one - no thanks). I called T-Mobile back and was connected with the porting department. When asked for the PIN I just said there wasn't one and the port person said no problem. All I needed was my account number and my name and address EXACTLY as listed on my bill. The port went through about thirty-six hours after the initial request.

The second hitch was I received two "Oops! Issue with your Google Voice Number Porting Request" emails from GV. The first email was immediately after my initial port request and the second was almost two hours after the first email. I know my TMo account PIN was correct but I reset it anyhow (dialed 611 from phone) then submitted the info to Google again via the link provided in the email. I was confused about the request for the last four digits of my social security number because that wasn't info I gave when setting up my TMo Pay As You Go account; perhaps that's why GV emailed twice. Nonetheless, I filled in my last four (it's required) all three times (initial, first email, second email) and the port was successful almost exactly twenty-four hours after the initial port request.

My costs: used T-Mobile phone on Craigslist, $10; T-Mobile SIM, $.099; Google Voice port, $20.00; Obi110, $49.00; for a grand total of $79.99. My monthly AT&T home service (metered, no long distance) was $21.31, so in four months I'll have recouped costs.

One more thing... when I was on the phone with AT&T (landline) I asked if I'd still have 911 service if I disconnected my landline. I was put on hold while the rep checked, then was told yes, it would remain active on my line. Not sure how long that'll last, but I do still have a dial tone.

[truelies]

My landline service is called entouch in Texas. I checked on Tmobile link the number is portable to Tmobile. Can Entouch refuse to port it after I call in? I think maybe they want to keep me. Also google voice is free until the end of this year, for 2013 will they charge us money on OBI device?

So the procedure is:
1. buy an obi 110
2. port number to tmobile then gv
3. install obi 110 and make sure it works
4. cancel the landline

Is that correct?

[CoalMinerRetired]

My landline service is called entouch in Texas. I checked on Tmobile link the number is portable to Tmobile. Can Entouch refuse to port it after I call in? I think maybe they want to keep me. Also google voice is free until the end of this year, for 2013 will they charge us money on OBI device?

So the procedure is:
1. buy an obi 110
2. port number to tmobile then gv
3. install obi 110 and make sure it works
4. cancel the landline

Is that correct?

Is that correct?

Not exactly. When you do "2." to tmobile, it automatically does "4."  You will not have both the ported number to TMob and a landline number. Well, you will have both for about 24 or 48 hours, but that is temporary until your landline provider catches up with the automatic cancellation request from the port.

[pc44]

Is that correct?

Not exactly. When you do "2." to tmobile, it automatically does "4."  You will not have both the ported number to TMob and a landline number. Well, you will have both for about 24 or 48 hours, but that is temporary until your landline provider catches up with the automatic cancellation request from the port.

Correct, but it can't hurt to contact your landline provider and make sure that they have completely cancelled your account billing at stage 4 of the above list.  Call me distrusting, but I could easily see 'certain' landline providers continuing to bill for some service or another -- even after the number has been ported away.

pc44

[CoalMinerRetired]

Is that correct?

Not exactly. When you do "2." to tmobile, it automatically does "4."  You will not have both the ported number to TMob and a landline number. Well, you will have both for about 24 or 48 hours, but that is temporary until your landline provider catches up with the automatic cancellation request from the port.

Correct, but it can't hurt to contact your landline provider and make sure that they have completely cancelled your account billing at stage 4 of the above list.  Call me distrusting, but I could easily see 'certain' landline providers continuing to bill for some service or another -- even after the number has been ported away.

pc44

I'll begrudgingly agree here.  I've successfully ported two landlines to Tmob then to GV. Both worked without any problems. However I was suspicious about the 'is everything really cancelled' part.

In both my cases it was, and the confirmation I used was to login to the online 'account access' for each cancelled line.

A few days after the cancellation the online account showed nothing different, a few more days it showed a credit (a few $$ the phone company owed me), another few days it couldn't find the current bill (I took this to mean the account was slowly disappearing from their computer systems). And again after a few more days I got an email (had previously signed up to 'get an email notification when a new bill is available') saying new bill is available with -$12.xx due. Which was confusing, the minus didn't register as a credit at first. Nor was it clear in the online bill. So I waited a few more days and a paper bill showed up, still showed -$12.xx as amount due, it did show 'do not pay', and had in small print "final bill". Then a week or so later got a paper check for $12.xx from the phone company, which was even more mysterious on the outside, because it showed 'treasury department' as the return address.  

On the second line, it was more or less the same, except I owed the ILEC about the same amount as they owed me for the cancellation from the first line, about $14.00.  It seems that for my local phone company some categories of monthly charges are billed afterwards (metered usage) and some are billed forward (some govt fees and taxes, and basic service?).  For the first cancellation, I did the move to TMob midway into the billing cycle, for the second one I did the move to Tmob one day after the billing cycle closed (timing was purely by accident, TMob took from a Friday night to following Tuesday evening to port).

EDIT: I did the porting/cancellation of the second line about three weeks after doing the first line.

[pc44]

CoalMinerRetired,

Ahh... two good experiences there.  Glad those went well.  Perhaps the problems I described are not that common after all.  I just am not very trusting of some of the large landline providers' billing departments.  Hopefully, the bad incidents are a rare commodity.  Thanks for your feedback... helps me see something other than only the dark side.

pc44

[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]

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]

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.

[worthmining]

Has anyone tried to turn on two phase authentication on google and tested with obitalk?

[truelies]

After one week, still didn't port to Tmobile. Called Tmobile they said that they porting system currently not work, needs about 1-5 days to fix it. My landline not working, dsl works.

[truelies]

Today my number was ported to tmobile, but after I went to google voice, it shows

Porting your mobile number to Google Voice is unavailable
Your mobile number can not be ported at this time.
- This number appears to be from an area we don't currently support for porting.

Does this mean I will lost this number? I think it's a tmobile problem, will wait a few days to see if it works.

[truelies]

quote]I am glad everyone is posting their nightmares, but we really need to hear more success stories too.

I am very analytical and do a lot of reading before jumping into something like this.  My lack of understanding of how everything works burned me.  Here are some rules I learned.

1.) Google voice will only transfer numbers from cell providers.
2.) Moving your Landline to a cell provider does not guarantee that you can then port that number to Google Voice.
3) Go to http://www.telcodata.us/search-area-code-exchange-by-ratecenter-state?ratecenter=elyria&state=oh and enter your city and state.  If Bandwidth.com is not listed under your NPA-NXX you will not be able to port it to Google Voice form a cell carrier.
4) Never cancel your landline or cell line number before the port is complete.  Your original account will be closed after the port.
5) If you have DSL on the same account as the number you are porting it will stop working when the port occurs.  I ordered a second DSL line in the house with a new account before the port to keep the service going.

Hope this helps others.

That's not true, my 281-778 listed under NPA-NXX, but can't port.

[CoalMinerRetired]

Today my number was ported to tmobile, but after I went to google voice, it shows

Porting your mobile number to Google Voice is unavailable
Your mobile number can not be ported at this time.
- This number appears to be from an area we don't currently support for porting.

Does this mean I will lost this number? I think it's a tmobile problem, will wait a few days to see if it works.

Why you think you would lose your number if you keep your pre-paid TMobile account funded? TMobile has some restrictions on this (six months of non-use and you do lose the number), you'd be wise to get familar with those if you're worried about losing the number.

The worst case here is you can port the number back to a landline in your house. The middle ground tradeoff case is you port to a VoIP provider other than GV, and pay a monthly fee.