When portability was enabled for mobile phone numbers on November 24th, 2003 I was ready to eliminate one of my three cellular service providers. I already had a phone that only my closest friends had the number of, my T-Mobile SideKick, because I use it as a data device. My old AT&T Wireless phone had been replaced by a Sprint model that offered 70k USB data connections as well as thousands of minutes of voice for the same money that I was paying to Ma Bell. The problem I had was that thousands of my business cards had this AT&T phone number printed on them. I wanted my contacts to be able to reach out and touch me.
On the first day of what the press had thought would be a "mass exodus" of mobile users I called T-Mobile and began the process of giving them control of my AT&T Wireless phone number. I was pleasantly surprised that they had an automated voicemail system to direct me to the porting service group. After they acknowledged my number was "capable" of moving we began the simple process. I was told that I should receive as text SMS message in a few hours when the process was complete. I was not supposed to cancel my old service as that would happen automatically and could disable the port if I attempted it. I waited for that message. I wanted that message. I received no message. Later that night, I called T-Mobile back and was told that many people were porting and a backlog was occurring. I waited again. Two days later I called to check the status and let them know my name was slightly different between the providers after looking at my AT&T and T-Mobile bills. AT&T had me as "Dave Mathews" and T-Mobile had me listed as "David Mathews" within their billing systems. A friendly T-Mobile rep said that some ports were being kicked back for differences in names or addresses - sometimes even from differences in upper or lower case! After a few key clicks on his computer I was now known as "Dave Mathews" in T-Mobile's systems and a second port request was executed. Two days later I called again. Finally on December 9th I received the belated text message notifying me of my old number making its way out of the clutches of AT&T Wireless. Joy! I thought this closed the chapter on my wireless port.
In December I received a bill from AT&T Wireless for the partial month of service used before the port. I had planned never to see a Ma Bell bill again. I had them waive the bill since my billing cycle ended on the 24th; the day I asked them to leave me alone and their much publicized software issues delayed the process. I did not update my address with them either. You can imagine my surprise when she mailed me a bill in January, to my new address, for services that were turned off on December 9th. After calling AT&T Wireless customer care (do they really?) I was asked by the rep "How can your number be ported when it is active in our system?" I replied "how do I get T-Mobile's voicemail when I dial that number?" Several minutes and two "can you hold?" requests later, my bill was credited for the unused service and I was forwarded to the porting group at AT&T to delete my number from their system. After a 10-minute hold time I received another rep who promptly deleted my phone number and said I had her easiest call all day. Give me another month before I believe her.
The more complicated part of this story occurs exactly a month earlier when I signed up for Vonage voice over IP service. I was about to move, only a few miles, but the move required a change of my area code. Since I had my home phone number for 8 years I was not anxious to get rid of it, let alone switch area codes. Vonage gave me the opportunity to port my home numbers to their service and I could save some money at the same time. I had already ported these numbers once from GTE ISDN to AT&T Digital Phone - a non VoIP service provided over cable TV lines which took hours to accomplish. Have you noticed that I never had analog POTS service at my house? Nice 'eh?
The Vonage porting process requires you to fill out a carrier change authorization form and fax in a copy of your existing phone bill. This is a nice security feature and makes sure that their t's are crossed and i's are dotted in the porting process. Vonage uses a third party CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) for the port since they save their users from traditional wire line carrier taxes since they are not considered a CLEC. My paper work was faxed in for two phone lines on October 24th. Vonage forwarded my request to their partner on October 27th. On November 4th the request was sent to my old home phone provider, now known as Comcast Digital Phone. The process according to Vonage takes from 3 to 13 days on average. After bugging the nice people at the Vonage on December 1st and 16th I was told that the incumbent carrier had been experiencing difficulties porting. No kidding. My New Years present however, was a tentative port at the end of December according to the Vonage email! I had visions of my friends calling and inviting me to parties the day of my port. My home phone never rang. A stroke of bad luck caused my cell phone to break, which I quickly fixed before the evening festivities. I made it to two parties. Whew!
At the January 2004 Consumer Electronics Show I ran into the founder of Vonage and told him of my two-plus month “port holding pattern.” I let him know that I liked the service despite not being able to be contacted on my old numbers even though outbound calls showed the caller ID of those digits. Only a few people had my temporary numbers Vonage assigns, because I thought the process would only take a few days. Either the planets aligned, or my chat with the CEO worked because an email arrived on January 12th, when I returned, notifying me of the release of my numbers to Vonage. Could it be that I would finally receive calls? Two and a half months after my initial request, Comcast released my phone numbers. Of course I was billed for those unused months of service from Comcast... Oh well. At least I kept all of my phone digits.
Porting works, but it is not for the faint of heart or those who hate to hear “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line so that we may give you the same level of customer service that others are experiencing now.” How sweet.
I really do like Vonage. With rates from $14.99 to $34.99 with calls through hardware, along with laptop and PDA software clients, you will too!
I've spent the past two weeks enjoying email again thanks to Google Mail. In fact, I am doing something that I have wished I could do for years, but did not want to go through the trouble of setting up an IMAP server and multiple mail clients. I can now leave several computers around my house and office essentailly "logged into" GMail. My OS-X Mac's, Windows 2000 and XP machines all get constantly refreshed with the latest mail coming to my self-hosted mail server at davemathews.com online.
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