I'm hoping I can get some feedback from the group regarding how you deal with porting numbers and minimizing downtime during the transition. I'm fighting with my gov't customer right now as they want no downtime, which I've tried to tell them is impossible.

So, if you all could share your experiences with this issue and suggestions on how to make this process as smooth as possible, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

nearly impossible to do with my experience with porting numbers since it was implemented. there will be a 2-3 hour transition minimum....rarely is it faster.

to make it fast and easy as possible have the following readily available

1) mobile #
2) Acct #
3) acct owner info
4) ssn or tax ID
5) billing address
6) if any of the lines have a password that is required when calling carrier you will need that

What do you mean by porting?

Switch carriers and keep same phone number? there will always be a little downtime, 5 min if lucky to a few hours if your unlucky.

They will have dual service initially

old carrier will make and receive calls, new will be able to make calls

they will receive a text in 2-3 hours usually stating port is complete and to power off both devices and to then turn new one back on PROCESS complete

Yes, switching carriers and keeping the same number. Basically what happened is they tried porting the CIOs number over and the whole process (porting and EA of new device) took something like 3 hours. They dont feel this is acceptible. So they want me to tell them what went wrong and how to fix it...when I wasnt involved in the first place.

As you can tell, I'm extremely frustrated with this customer right now...LOL

Wirelessly posted (Pearl 8100)

Well you can tell them nothing went wrong, this is just how long it takes!
In my experience though, when you're switching carries, I just use the old aim card, and when it's dead swap sim cards! Though i'm not sure how all carriers go about porting numbers.

you can schedule the ports to take place at a specific time so as to not intefere during business hours. Just ask the carrier

I've got a process when swapping from any other provider to Verizon Wireless where the port is queued up in the Verizon system. The number remains active until I power on the new Verizon phone/BlackBerry, dial *22800 [Send], press option 1 to program and 1:03 later, the number is ported and active on the new device. Then I queue up the Wireless Enterprise Activation from the BES and 10-15 minutes later, all of their data appears on the device.
End of line.

It depends on the carrier. Once you get a few under your belt and get a feel for the ins and outs of a particular carrier, you can minimize the potential downtime to minutes (as low as 5 or even 1 minute) rather than hours. The best advise is to talk to the carrier (or your assigned rep) in question and hear that they suggest.

With AT&T, we place a call to an automated 800 number, supply our information, the number to be ported, and the number from the new SIM card. We turn off the old phone, turn on the new one. Dial the number from another phone, and wait for it to ring. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes start to finish.

If the person being ported is important enough (C-level exec) we conference in our sales rep and a support rep. Support rep does the port while we all wait. This takes about twice as long as the automated method, but it guarantees success.

Okay, so it's gotten worse...will this work?

In this scenario, I'm porting a number from Sprint to T-Mobile.

- I EA the T-Mobile device (with its own number and data plan) and give it to the customer
- I call sprint and have them forward calls to to the new T-Mobile device. I then ask T-Mobile to port the number during the evening.
- When the port goes through, the T-Mobile device assumes the number and all the user should need to do is reboot the device.

I dont think this will work but my Feds are telling me this will. So, I'm yeilding to the experts.

Thanks!