[VoiceOps] Growing difficulties porting DIDs out of major VoIP carriers

[BackUP Telecom Consulting]

Technically, it is possible to port without an LSR as long as winning 
carrier submits their port request in NPAC and the losing carrier 
concurs. The LSR is technically just a courtesy notice sent to the 
losing carrier so they know to look for the port request in NPAC, but a 
lot of games get played when it comes to LSRs on both sides of the 
fence. The losing carriers often play games by refusing to concur in 
NPAC until they receive a "valid" LSR (which can require an act of God 
to be considered valid). Winning carriers also play games sometimes by 
refusing to put any effort into making the port happen. Tracking an LSR 
through the entire process involves a lot of work that they would prefer 
not to do so they purposely weed out the customers that don't really 
care enough to make a big deal about keeping their old number.  Some 
winning carriers have no clue what to do if they run into a problem with 
the port request and others just refuse to deal with a request if 
doesn't go through easily.

Last year I was without my business number for about 11 months after I 
moved because Comcast disconnected my service before the port completed. 
I complained that I'd had my number for 10 years before porting it to 
them but that didn't seem to bother them. They had no intention of 
putting the effort into getting my number back! Initially they claimed 
they couldn't get it back after it had been disconnected. Then they told 
me it had already been released back to the previous carrier. When I 
told them I was a telecom consultant and knew their SPID was still 
associated with my TN, they finally admitted it was still available, but 
claimed they couldn't give it back to me unless I installed new service 
with them. I told them I had it call forwarded to another number for 
months after I disconnected the equipment but they claimed they couldn't 
turn it back on unless there was equipment at my previous location. 
After numerous calls and a threat to file an FCC complaint, I finally 
got them to turn it up for a month so I could port it away. I ended up 
having to pay them $110.00 so they could dispatch a tech to my previous 
location and activate my number. (The tech hooked up the equipment, 
activated the phone service and then removed the equipment and told me 
not to return it until after my number ported.) SO frustrating, 
especially since I could have walked them through the entire process! 
Unfortunately there's not a lot of oversight and it's very difficult for 
an end user to get help when it happens so until these offending 
carriers get their hand slapped enough, they have no incentive to clean 
up their act!


Mary Lou Carey

BackUP Telecom Consulting

Office: 615-791-9969

Cell: 615-796-1111

On 2019-03-05 10:41 AM, Oren Yehezkely wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am hoping that someone may be able to shed some light as to the
> difficulties mobile carriers have to port DIDs away from major VoIP
> carriers such as Bandwidth and Onvoy.
> 
> The problem does not seem to be on the VoIP providers. In most of the
> cases, they do not even receive an LSR. The mobile carriers seem to be
> asking for a CSR multiple times but never submit an LSR, then they
> tell the EU that the port request has failed.
> 
> In another case, when the DID is with Bandwidth, the ATT system tells
> the customer that the number is with LOCKED with Google Voice and
> cannot be ported. I wonder who builds these faulty systems for these
> corporations?
> 
> Any advice is appreciated.
> 
> Oren
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