Problems with porting to Google Voice.

[carl]

Apparently, porting to GV is not that easy as presented on this forum. Porting from the previous provider to T mobile prepaid went without problems in less than 2 days.  However, the port to GV got stuck. It started with an error on my side typing in a wrong password, an issue which I corrected after the system e-mailed me. But from that moment on nothing is happening. The port is in " progress" for 5 days, although t- mobile completed the request immediately. I am getting no response from GV. their forum is full of complaints about the same or similar problems without any hint that any of those problems were ever resolved.
It is really annoying because it is for one of my relatives who I talked into dropping Magic Jack and switching to Obi/GV. Unfortunately, GV does not even have any local number available and with the number we got locals with PSTN would have to pay long distance.
I am normally patient with GV since it is free, however, 20$ is a very steep porting fee and I would expect some customer service and problem resolution.  
Anyone here with the same experience?

[IrwinFamily]

Number porting typically takes about 3 weeks.
Also, most carriers charge $20-$30 to import, so the cost is reasonable.

[Everton]

You said that T-Mobile completed the request immediately, what do mean by this statement?  Did your mobile phone with the number went "dead" immediately after completing the port request from Google Voice?  I did a port from T-Mobile to GV and it became active/completed in exactly 24-hours!  When you call the ported number today, what happens?  Does it show up on the call history of your GV account?  Does it ring and go to GV Voicemail? 

Can T-Mobile offer any assistance?

[Rick]

Number porting typically takes about 3 weeks.
Also, most carriers charge $20-$30 to import, so the cost is reasonable.

What do you base this on?  FCC requires 4 days or less.  http://www.fcc.gov/guides/portability-keeping-your-phone-number-when-changing-service-providers

[Rick]

Apparently, porting to GV is not that easy as presented on this forum. Porting from the previous provider to T mobile prepaid went without problems in less than 2 days.  However, the port to GV got stuck. It started with an error on my side typing in a wrong password, an issue which I corrected after the system e-mailed me. But from that moment on nothing is happening. The port is in " progress" for 5 days, although t- mobile completed the request immediately. I am getting no response from GV. their forum is full of complaints about the same or similar problems without any hint that any of those problems were ever resolved.
It is really annoying because it is for one of my relatives who I talked into dropping Magic Jack and switching to Obi/GV. Unfortunately, GV does not even have any local number available and with the number we got locals with PSTN would have to pay long distance.
I am normally patient with GV since it is free, however, 20$ is a very steep porting fee and I would expect some customer service and problem resolution.  
Anyone here with the same experience?

File a complaint with the FCC immediately.  That will get their attention.

[rtalcott]

My port from my AT&T cell to gv took 5-6 days...definitely took longer than the quoted 48 hours....but...it's been GREAT after that.
rt

[carl]

Number porting typically takes about 3 weeks.
Also, most carriers charge $20-$30 to import, so the cost is reasonable.

What do you base this on?  FCC requires 4 days or less.  http://www.fcc.gov/guides/portability-keeping-your-phone-number-when-changing-service-providers

He probably refers to porting of foreign numbers by e.g. Anveo.
Most carriers do not charge for porting at all. Cheap VOIP providers do, Callcentric is $ 15.-

[carl]

You said that T-Mobile completed the request immediately, what do mean by this statement?  Did your mobile phone with the number went "dead" immediately after completing the port request from Google Voice?  I did a port from T-Mobile to GV and it became active/completed in exactly 24-hours!  When you call the ported number today, what happens?  Does it show up on the call history of your GV account?  Does it ring and go to GV Voicemail? 

Can T-Mobile offer any assistance?

Nothing is happening, the t mobile phone works as usual . However, when calling the customer service, I did not get the normal menu and was directly routed to the rep because of pending port. They cannot do anything for me, it is stuck on GV side.

[carl]

My port from my AT&T cell to gv took 5-6 days...definitely took longer than the quoted 48 hours....but...it's been GREAT after that.
rt

I hope that you are right. However, I will have to configure the Obi before my relative goes out of the country plus I do not feel like buying a new prepaid card from t mobile in order to keep the service going.

[carl]

Apparently, porting to GV is not that easy as presented on this forum. Porting from the previous provider to T mobile prepaid went without problems in less than 2 days.  However, the port to GV got stuck. It started with an error on my side typing in a wrong password, an issue which I corrected after the system e-mailed me. But from that moment on nothing is happening. The port is in " progress" for 5 days, although t- mobile completed the request immediately. I am getting no response from GV. their forum is full of complaints about the same or similar problems without any hint that any of those problems were ever resolved.
It is really annoying because it is for one of my relatives who I talked into dropping Magic Jack and switching to Obi/GV. Unfortunately, GV does not even have any local number available and with the number we got locals with PSTN would have to pay long distance.
I am normally patient with GV since it is free, however, 20$ is a very steep porting fee and I would expect some customer service and problem resolution.  
Anyone here with the same experience?

File a complaint with the FCC immediately.  That will get their attention.


The FCC has changed its number porting rules to shorten the porting period for "simple" ports from the current four days to one business day. The new deadline applies to all simple ports, including "intermodal" ports such as wireline to wireless, wireless to wireline, wireline or wireless to VoIP or any other combination. Simple ports generally do not involve more than one line or more complex adjustments to telephone switching equipment. Wireline, wireless and interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers are required to meet this new, simple port deadline, which will take effect in late summer 2010 for most carriers. Small, rural carriers have a longer period, until the beginning of 2011, to meet the new porting deadline.

I am not quite sure what GV status really is and whether the same rules apply as for regular VOIP  providers.

[jimates]

If the law says 1 day and it takes 4 or the law says 5 days and it takes 20. there is still no recourse for the customer. It isn't like we would get an compensation for the delay.

[Stewart]

Unfortunately, GV does not even have any local number available and with the number we got locals with PSTN would have to pay long distance.

That's suspicious.  Are you sure that GV can port this number?  What is the area code and next three digits?  If bandwidth.com does not have a presence in that rate center, you are probably out of luck.

I suggest that you get an inexpensive DID that is local to the callers (Anveo, Localphone, etc.)  Set up the voicemail greeting on T-Mobile to refer callers to that number (and don't offer to take a message).  I believe that when a caller to T-Mobile prepaid gets voicemail, you are not charged airtime, though you should confirm that.  If so, a $10 top-up should give you three months to resolve the problem, because you won't be using any cellular minutes.  (You are charged airtime to retrieve voicemail from the cell phone, but you should never need to do that.)

Set up the OBi so your relative can make free calls on GV (albeit with the "wrong" outbound caller ID) and receive calls on both GV and the SIP account.  If you need to change the configuration while s/he is abroad, you can use the OBiTalk portal.  If you have trouble, you can communicate for free (via Google Talk / Skype / whatever) and resolve the issue.

[carl]

Unfortunately, GV does not even have any local number available and with the number we got locals with PSTN would have to pay long distance.

That's suspicious.  Are you sure that GV can port this number?  What is the area code and next three digits?  If bandwidth.com does not have a presence in that rate center, you are probably out of luck.

I am pretty sure that they can port it.
954-353-xxxx
I am getting for her a Localphone DID regardless ( although their choice of numbers for the area in question is not great either) but there are two issues- I do not want to make it too complex because I know that it will NOT work with her in such a case and the other issue is that I already had a hell setting up Localphone with obi in our area and I am nort sure whether a Localphone account will work with her overseas because I needed a special dialing code which routed the calls in a certain way ( on Localphone side, it was not a hardware issue). Plus there was the issue with Localphone voice mail in my setting which I had to bypass by getting a phone with answering machine because the voice mail works only when Obi is off.
Simplicity is the key here. Unfortunately, Magic jack was just too miserable.
There is also a possibility to park the phone number but it would cost about the same as the t-mobile refill card indeed.

[Stewart]

There should be no problem with Localphone voicemail on unanswered calls.  On the Localphone site, under My Account, click the Internet Phone tab.  At the bottom of the page, under Call forwarding, click change.  Under "When there is no answer", check the box, select Voicemail and choose the desired time before voicemail picks up.  If desired, you could forward on no answer to a different voicemail system, e.g. Google Voice, but you will pay $0.005/min. for the forwarded call, or could forward free via iNum to Callcentric, VoxOx, etc.

Please explain what you mean by "special dialing code".  Localphone uses 00 rather than 011 for the international access code, but is otherwise pretty standard.  In any case, you can set up the OBi to accept numbers in any format you like and translate them to what the provider requires.

It seems that GV should be able to port your number; Bandwidth.com has 50,000+ numbers in the Ft. Lauderdale area.  When I tried to ask for a GV number, I was offered 754-300-xxxx.

[carl]

There should be no problem with Localphone voicemail on unanswered calls.  On the Localphone site, under My Account, click the Internet Phone tab.  At the bottom of the page, under Call forwarding, click change.  Under "When there is no answer", check the box, select Voicemail and choose the desired time before voicemail picks up.  If desired, you could forward on no answer to a different voicemail system, e.g. Google Voice, but you will pay $0.005/min. for the forwarded call, or could forward free via iNum to Callcentric, VoxOx, etc.

Please explain what you mean by "special dialing code".  Localphone uses 00 rather than 011 for the international access code, but is otherwise pretty standard.  In any case, you can set up the OBi to accept numbers in any format you like and translate them to what the provider requires.

It seems that GV should be able to port your number; Bandwidth.com has 50,000+ numbers in the Ft. Lauderdale area.  When I tried to ask for a GV number, I was offered 754-300-xxxx.

Okay .  She did not want to have a 754 area code because it is only being used by Metro, MVNOs and cheap VOIP. She wanted a 954 or 305 number, unfortunately, the only one GV assigned was from Monroe county and that's long distance for people from Miami/Ft Lauderdale metro area. In the hind sight, she better took the 754 right away considered the costs and hassle.
For some reason, there are problems with routing of Localphone calls in Miami metro area and i had to Iincorporate( with Ron's kind help) a 4 digit code provided by Localphone CS into the digitmap. The question is whether this will work in a different geographic location or whether this change will have to be removed .
The problem with the voice mail is that wnen OBi is on, the phone keeps on ringing and disconnects after 8 rings and does not go into voice mail. when Obi is off, it does properly go into the voice mail. As said, i solved the problem by getting a new cordless 2 line V tech phone with answering machine which picks up  after 6 rings so whatever does not get picked up by voice mail( like my GV calls on the other line) goes to the answering machine. Localphone cannot help with it, it has most likely something to do with the proprietary U verse Gateway. I can live with that but complexity is an issue for her.

[RFord]

Bandwidth.com seems to run out of 954 Area Codes from time to time.  If you keep checking, more 954 will become available.  Also, they should be able to port your 954-353-xxxx, even though it doesn't show up on their list.  I was able to port a T-Mobile number 954-73X-XXXX to GV sometime ago:

http://www.localcallingguide.com/lca_prefix.php?ocn=982E&npa=954&region=FL

[Stewart]

Something seems very strange about your Localphone VM problem.  While I can certainly imagine a problem with the U-Verse RG that corrupts a SIP CANCEL request and causes an unanswered call to continue to ring her phone, that should have nothing to do with Localphone's sending the caller to voicemail.  If the caller continued to hear ringing, IMO that had to be a problem with the Localphone configuration or with their service.  As I mentioned earlier, the setting for voicemail-on-no-answer is in an obscure place (Internet Phone -> Call Forwarding).  Can you retest if that is working now?

I am reasonably certain that Localphone does not route calls differently based on IP address, so moving the OBi overseas won't change anything.  However, they may route a call differently based on the caller's number, because of various tariffs related to intra- vs. inter-state and intra- vs. inter-LATA.  Also, it's possible that if the general problem with FL routing is fixed, the special 4-digit prefix may be discontinued or repurposed.  So, you should be prepared to adjust the OBi configuration if needed.  That should not be hard to do, either through the OBiTalk portal, directly via port forwarding, or by remote access to her desktop and running a browser from there.

[carl]

Something seems very strange about your Localphone VM problem.  While I can certainly imagine a problem with the U-Verse RG that corrupts a SIP CANCEL request and causes an unanswered call to continue to ring her phone, that should have nothing to do with Localphone's sending the caller to voicemail.  If the caller continued to hear ringing, IMO that had to be a problem with the Localphone configuration or with their service.  As I mentioned earlier, the setting for voicemail-on-no-answer is in an obscure place (Internet Phone -> Call Forwarding).  Can you retest if that is working now?

Forwarding to another number or forwarding directly to the voice mail works without problems. A few months ago, when i was setting up my Localphone service, I posted a.o. about the voice mail problems. I Will contact Localphone again in order to find out about any possible changes, in the past they were not able to help me. Localphone voice mail is a bit strange anyway since you cannot access it from another phone. The only way is to use *1571 from the phone connected to your registered ATA. Yes, you can access it via the computer but since I cannot use the LP softphone or X lite etc ( those mysterious gateway issues) that's not an option for me. I recorded a message for the callers with an alternate number to reach me, but it is a bit of an issue with those using my overseas DID.

[carl]

I called Amex and charged back the $ 20.- for the port. I will think about trying it once again in a few days . If that does not work I just let the number go. GV does strange things sometimes.

[jimates]

Read the porting info at Anveo http://www.anveo.com/faq.asp?code=faq_did_portin

3 to 5 weeks.