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jeffnyc
join:2004-06-09
Atlanta, GA

jeffnyc

Member

Porting non-mobile to google voice

I have read its possible to port a landline/voip number first to a prepaid mobile and then to GV.

Has anyone done this? Any suggestions on which prepaid phone to get?

Thanks.

josephf
join:2009-04-26

josephf

Member

Here someone described himself successfully doing exactly that a few days ago:

»[Other] From Vonage to Google Voice in under 96 hours

He used T-Mobile Prepaid.
jeffnyc
join:2004-06-09
Atlanta, GA

jeffnyc

Member

Thanks. Will take a look.
tom thomas
join:2010-11-04

tom thomas

Member

said by jeffnyc:

Thanks. Will take a look.

are you planning to port a VOIP or land line number?

so far all the cases i have read about are people going from VOIP - mobile -GV. i would be interested to hear if the same success comes going PSTN landline - mobile - GV.

josephf
join:2009-04-26

josephf

Member

said by tom thomas:

so far all the cases i have read about are people going from VOIP - mobile -GV. i would be interested to hear if the same success comes going PSTN landline - mobile - GV.

VoIP or landline shouldn't make a difference. For one thing, the CLEC's that VoIP service providers get their DID's from, also issue DID's from the same pool for landline service. Secondly, Google Voice's mobile-only port policy is a unique internal policy of theirs. There is no reason they are limited to only porting mobile numbers, except they would prefer to only have to deal with 4 national wireless carriers, rather than 100's of ILEC's and CLEC's. So once your number is with one of the national wireless carriers, regardless of whether it was previously with an ILEC, CLEC, or VoIP (which itself gets their numbers from CLEC's), Google Voice will accept the port.

jpinsl
join:2001-06-29
Salt Lake City, UT

jpinsl

Member

t-mobile.com has the $10 prepaid activation kit for $6.99, including shipping. . .
tom thomas
join:2010-11-04

tom thomas to jeffnyc

Member

to jeffnyc
pageplus will do a free activation if you are porting a number. you can use any old verizon phone or phone from another CDMA network that has been 'flashed' to verizon. the exception is any verizon phone with a 'bad esn' usually meaning an unpaid bill attached to it or a reported stolen phone, this includes most of the bargain priced newer(but second hand) phones on craigslilst and ebay. there is also a specific ban on all retail packed prepaid phones, blackberries and the new verizon iphone 4.

i would recommend any old cheap basic verizon phone that was not originally a prepaid. these usually will have clean esn's. than just go to the pageplus website or call their customer service.

note: the free activation directly from pageplus is only if you are porting in a number. you will get $2 in calling credit, there is no need to add any additional credit. you will have to pay if you want to activate a phone with a new phone number directly, although some dealers will do that for free.

p.s. it seems GV might only be allowing port-ins from the 4 major US carriers. it is not clear if they would consider pageplus to be verizon or not.
tom thomas

tom thomas to jeffnyc

Member

to jeffnyc

helpful thread

related thread on another great forum:

»www.howardforums.com/sho ··· in-to-GV
jeffnyc
join:2004-06-09
Atlanta, GA

jeffnyc to tom thomas

Member

to tom thomas

Re: Porting non-mobile to google voice

said by tom thomas:

pageplus will do a free activation if you are porting a number. you can use any old verizon phone or phone from another CDMA network that has been 'flashed' to verizon. the exception is any verizon phone with a 'bad esn' usually meaning an unpaid bill attached to it or a reported stolen phone, this includes most of the bargain priced newer(but second hand) phones on craigslilst and ebay. there is also a specific ban on all retail packed prepaid phones, blackberries and the new verizon iphone 4.
...

p.s. it seems GV might only be allowing port-ins from the 4 major US carriers. it is not clear if they would consider pageplus to be verizon or not.

this is interesting cuz I have old Verizon phones with clean ESNs lying around. I do not have any T-Mobile.

So you think its possible to port to Pageplus with absolutely no cost, pay nothing and then simply port out to GV after the port goes through to PP??? The $2 starter credit can be used for the confirmation call.

If it is an issue to port from PP to GV, is there a cheap way to port to VZW prepaid?
tom thomas
join:2010-11-04

tom thomas

Member

If it is an issue to port from PP to GV?

it seems it is sometimes any issue. whether or not GV offers number of its own in the rate center may be the issue. also(from reading the thread i linked to above) it seems people going straight from pageplus to GV are having better success rates than those going from carrier X - pageplus - GV this may also be the question of rate centers though.

i have not seen any confirmation of a successful port from landline - cell - GV. although it seems not many people are trying. most are trying to go VOIP provider - cell - GV.
Celtic Comms
join:2011-03-20

Celtic Comms

Member

It seems to be mainly an issue of which carriers GV has agreements with. I have taken a landline number, ported it to T-Mobile and then to GV. Within a few hours of the number moving to T-Mobile the number became available for port-in on GV.

If you want to check which carrier a number is currently registered to the Amber Alerts sign up page is a handy way to check it:

»www.wirelessamberalerts. ··· ndex.jsp
jeffnyc
join:2004-06-09
Atlanta, GA

jeffnyc to tom thomas

Member

to tom thomas
Anyone know when you port to google voice what happens if you have a credit balance?

1. Can the credit balance be used towards the port fee?
2, Does the credit balance maintain when the number ports in?

N9MD
Too busy to chat
Premium Member
join:2005-10-08
Boca Raton, FL

N9MD to Celtic Comms

Premium Member

to Celtic Comms
said by Celtic Comms:

If you want to check which carrier a number is currently registered to the Amber Alerts sign up page is a handy way to check it:

»www.wirelessamberalerts. ··· ndex.jsp

Wouldn't this site be more useful?! »tnid.us/
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to tom thomas

Premium Member

to tom thomas
said by tom thomas:

pageplus will do a free activation if you are porting a number.

Speaking of PagePlus:

I bought a phone from them a few weeks ago, and got a number from them.

All was OK until last night when I logged into the account. It said "add a phone" (my existing phone and the listing of the phone number were GONE) and "add minutes" (my existing minutes were GONE)....

....at least the phone itself works, for now. I'm still waiting to hear back from customer service.

(Also when I bought the phone, PagePlus had problems activating it---even though it was bought directly from THEM!)

Mods, this is NOT to turn this into a PagePlus review!

But I would say, if you value your current phone number, and want to port it to GoogleVoice, you may want to think twice about trusting PagePlus as a go-between.
tom thomas
join:2010-11-04

tom thomas

Member

i sell prepaid cell phones and service. i will admit that the customer service is about unusable and for some reason the online account portals never seems to work properly, even the dealer portals some time present strange and incorrect information. this pretty much applies to all the BYOD/MVNO operators.

on the other hand actually real billing errors are very rare, and very few of my customers even know the user portals exist and they tend not to call customer service(they come to my store and get help if they need it)

anyways if you are on a pay as go you will hear how many minutes you have left whenever you make a call. if you have a 1200 minute or unlimited plan you can just make a note of when you have to buy the next bucket of minutes(on these account the customer portal never makes any sense)
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

said by tom thomas:

i sell prepaid cell phones and service. i will admit that the customer service is about unusable and for some reason the online account portals never seems to work properly, even the dealer portals some time present strange and incorrect information. this pretty much applies to all the BYOD/MVNO operators.

I appreciate the information----thanks!

I don't know whether to be reassured or horrified that all of the wireless resellers like PagePlus are equally bad with customer service and with their online portals.

IMAGINE if our VoIP providers were this way!!

I can't think of ANY VoIP provider where one's account just disappears, and where that is just considered business as usual!
Expand your moderator at work
jeffnyc
join:2004-06-09
Atlanta, GA

1 edit

jeffnyc to PX Eliezer704

Member

to PX Eliezer704

Re: Porting non-mobile to google voice

I just ordered the card from T-Mobile for $6.99. Now I have to hope AT&T will provide me with an unlock code for an old RAZR =) And then I am trying to port out from Onesuite which was a horror porting into....

Edit: Got the unlock code from ATT on the spot from a very courteous CSR.
jeffnyc

2 edits

jeffnyc to josephf

Member

to josephf
said by josephf:

said by tom thomas:

so far all the cases i have read about are people going from VOIP - mobile -GV. i would be interested to hear if the same success comes going PSTN landline - mobile - GV.

VoIP or landline shouldn't make a difference. For one thing, the CLEC's that VoIP service providers get their DID's from, also issue DID's from the same pool for landline service. Secondly, Google Voice's mobile-only port policy is a unique internal policy of theirs. There is no reason they are limited to only porting mobile numbers, except they would prefer to only have to deal with 4 national wireless carriers, rather than 100's of ILEC's and CLEC's. So once your number is with one of the national wireless carriers, regardless of whether it was previously with an ILEC, CLEC, or VoIP (which itself gets their numbers from CLEC's), Google Voice will accept the port.

Ok, so I just started the first port from Onesuite to TMobile. When I got the T-Mobile Sim, I first tried activating online and it failed and so I called customer service. CSR said I wanted a temporary # to use the TMobile sim card before the port is completed she had to transfer me to another dept but if I just wanted to wait for my number she could initiate it.

According to tnid the number is with Global Crossing.

Joseph - not sure if you recall but you also responded on my old thread back in 2009 of the hell I went through porting into Onesuite from Voicestick. And of course N9MD and PX Eliezer were on that thread too

Hopefully porting out will be smoother.

And jpinsl - thanks for the suggestion - bought the $6.99 card which came out to $7.61 shipped with NYS sales tax and arrived in about 3 days.
grb54301
join:2008-08-15

grb54301 to jeffnyc

Member

to jeffnyc
Yes I have done it. I used an AT&T go phone. I also documented it step-by-step:

»www.scribd.com/doc/52724 ··· ngNotes#