What Has Number Portability Done For You? 756
Coldeagle writes "Number portability has been around for a few days now, I was wondering; have any of you fellow Slashdot readers switched carriers? How was your experience, and have you seen any price warring since it went into place?" Or is number portability so far more hype than happenin'?
nada, and it never will... (Score:2, Interesting)
Number portability... The commercials seem to point at the fact that you can now have your home phone number moved to a cell phone. While I do use my cell phone more than my land line I must say that having an actual phone plugged into the wall not really requiring any batteries, chargers, or antennas is nice.
My cell phone doesn't work all that well in my apartment, it rarely gets a call through on the first four or five times on the weekend, and it drops calls like mad when a plane flies overhead.
Honestly, it's just a gimmick. Something that was mandated for no real reason. It looks like something good but it just isn't what the advertisements and media claim. I liken it to the hype over the gold dollar. They went through all this trouble to design it, market it, and make sure coke machines took it and no one really cared.
As far as price-warring. The only service that I see with reasonable services and prices is T-mobile. They look fantastic until you pull up their coverage area... Here in the Twin Cities Metro area they have great coverage... Problem is I routinely travel outside of the metro area into western and southern MN along with western WI. No coverage there. Sad...
Until my cell service is mandated not to drop calls, not to require as much recharging, and not to have locked in contracts of 2 years, it won't do me any good.
Just my worthless
it's been around for a couple of years... (Score:4, Interesting)
(oh, and, yes, I'm talking about Europe here 8=)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Jury's out on that one (Score:5, Interesting)
The other issue that I am wondering about is telemarketing. It's illegal for telemarketers to call your cell phone, but if I take my land line number and give it to my cell phone, how will the telemarketers know not to call it? Did the FCC ever say anything about this?
Re:I was able to use it to get a better deal.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Beforehand they would have said, if you cancel your contract you will have to change your number.
I work for a call phone company (Score:5, Interesting)
We are pushing off the go-live date of at least one major project until early next year because customer service has been getting a LOT of WLNP calls (WLNP = wireless local number portability), way more than expected, and don't want any releases that will further increase call volume. So I don't know if slashdotters are porting, but a lot of people are. I just hope they are porting TO us and not FROM us
Heck, my own mother, who is as non-tech-saavy as they come, is considering porting her home phone number to a wireless phone and just getting rid of the landline. This law is going to shake up the industry. You may even see one or two wireless carriers going under as a result. They've been predicting for years that the 5 major carriers would eventually boil down to 3. This may be the catalyst to make that happen.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know verizon lets you switch plans in mid-stream, as long as you get a new term on the selected plan that is longer than what remains on your current agreement. IE, if you have 14 months left, you have to get a new 2 year agreement.
I've never had a problem switching to new promotional plans since I got my phones (I have 3 phones in my name for myself, my wife, and the business - no land lines). This may just be a Verizon thing though.
I didn't switch. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I have AT&T, but I want to switch to Verizon because my friends all have plans that give extra mobile-to-mobile minutes, which would be useful since they are the core group of people I talk to. Up until a few days ago though, I couldn't do it because of complications with changing my number.
Also, who the hell signs a two year agreement?
It made me stay... (Score:5, Interesting)
More minutes, cheaper, not nickle and dimed to death for features, and I don't have to pay just to play a stupid game on my cell phone.
I was hoping T-Mobile would give me like a free month for renewing my contract but they said neh so I said "well poo poo on you you" but I am sticking with them.
It's equipped my coworker with two phones! (Score:3, Interesting)
He now carries 2 cell phones: 1 (qwest) to receive calls, and 1 (ATT) to make calls. This has been over a week, and they still can't get it straightened out. He's even gone to the local news and been interviewed for a story, hoping the bad publicity will prompt some action. It seems like, for all of the warning the phone co's had, they still haven't worked out a lot of the systems necessary to make the switch.
The funny thing is, the FCC only 'recommends' a timeframe for making a switch, but states right on their site that there is no required time limit. Talk about a loophole the cellphone companies can drive a truck full of cash through! My coworker could end up paying for two phones indeffinately.
Re:I did... (Score:3, Interesting)
On 11/26, I bought two phones from T-Mobile, and switched my service from AT&T to T-Mobile. One phone took 5 days to transfer, the other still hasn't transferred. I'm filing a complaint with the FCC and the CA PUC.
Re:I did... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Price warring (Score:3, Interesting)
They can. The company I work for does it up and down the east coast. It's called "Phase II Compliance". Phase I is getting auto-magic locations from land-line 911 calls. Phase II is cell phone geo-location. The phone companies all have the ability, it's the local 911 call-centers that don't. (That and getting the phone companies to play nicely with each other and co-operate is like getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to share.)
-Ab
Switching carriers made my week (Score:3, Interesting)
I walked into the Verizon store, picked out a phone and a plan and within 2 hours was switched over. I didn't even have to bring in any documentation and I was surprised how painles entire processes was.
It was the best buying experience I've had in a long time. I'd rather not have to pay the $1.75 per month for a service that should be standard, but given the choice between the fee and freedom to switch numbers versus no fee but no choice, go ahead and bill me.
Re:What about the phone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the carrier lock in is WHY these phones are cheaper. That "free" phone probably costs closer to $100+, all costs told, but they recoup it so quickly with the margin on their service that it's actually more profitable to gimmick you into purchasing than it is to be honest with costs.
Dock It (Score:4, Interesting)
That way you have the conveniance of using your home phones, but you're only paying for your cell phone.
Just don't get into a contract (Score:2, Interesting)
With and unlocked phone and no contract I am free to switch providers and use number portability whenever I wish. My phone will work with any of the GSM carriers (Cingular, AT&T, T-Mobile) so I don't need to get into a new contract if I change providers. People need to have more foresight into NOT getting sucked into these 'deals' that providers offer for free cell phones and getting tangled in a contract.
nothing for me either.. (Score:3, Interesting)
getting a new number is something i actually want. this way i know who has the new number and no calls from people i'm hiding out from who knew the old one.
Wait! Don't switch yet! (A Porta-Hell Story) (Score:4, Interesting)
I initiated the transfer on Wed, 11/26. I had heard rumblings of portability problems with the wrong information being entered into the system, so I made sure "customer care" specialist repeated all of the information back to me. They gave me an original "due date" of Saturday, 11/30 at Noon.
Saturday rolled around and no transfer. I called back, and it turns out Sprint submitted the wrong address to the WLNP system. If the addresses don't match, it won't port. Nobody had called me in 3 days. To make matters worse, the address they submitted was my old address- 4 years and 3 addresses ago! It was my original address with Sprint, not even my current one they had on file!!
To cut a long story short, I've called Sprint 5 times since then, still no port 7 days later, and each time I call, they give me the wrong address issue, even though I've corrected it 6 times.
This most recent time, I waited 2 hours (on a landline) to speak to someone in the Sprint WLNP dept. They eventually got T-mobile on the line. Finally, they both agreed that it was the FCC-contracted third party that was the holdup, but that their system was in the middle of an "update" and was unaccessable for 2 hours. (In the middle of a business day?!!?)
This system is not working. If these companies had spent the time and effort making this work instead of fighting it, and maybe tested it at least once, it would work better.
But because there are so many parties involved, they figured they didn't have to, because there are 2 other people they can point the finger at.
I've yet to hear from a single AT&T person online who's successfully ported.
If you've having problems such as me, make sure to REPORT IT. [convio.net]
Other resources I've been using, mostly to comisserate:
Howard Forums [howardforums.com]
Sprintusers.com [sprintusers.com]
Number portability forum [numberportability.com]
Wait until they get the kinks out-- the system should take but a few hours, not more than a week!
Re:I work for a call phone company (Score:2, Interesting)
AT&T Completely Fails in Portability (Score:5, Interesting)
On Monday I called T-Mobile to begin the porting process. It took a little over an hour on the phone and at the end of the call they said it would take 3 to 24 hours before the change would be effective.
24 hours later, nothing had happened yet. I called T-Mobile back and was told that the request had been rejected by AT&T because my name on the request didn't match my name in their system. I grabbed my AT&T bill and reconfirmed with T-Mobile that it had, in fact, been entered correctly the first time. They resubmitted the request and said to check back in another 5 hours if it hadn't gone through.
5 hours later I called back to learn that AT&T rejected the request again saying that the ZIP code didn't match. We double-checked and it was exactly as it was listed on the AT&T bill. They said to check back again on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, more of the same. We went through again to make sure that all of the information in the request was exactly as it was listed on my AT&T bill and resubmitted the request. They said that if it failed this time, I was stuck until Friday since they wouldn't be open on Thanksgiving.
On Friday, nothing had changed. I called T-Mobile again and was told that AT&T was having serious computer problems and that all requests were being rejected. They said there was nothing else they could do right now and that there was no ETA. We were all at the mercy of AT&T and were simply stuck.
I checked again on Saturday and Sunday and got the same answer both times.
On Sunday I sent an eMail to AT&T Wireless Services telling them that there was no excuse for their incompetence given the fact that they've had over seven years since the original FCC mandate to prepare for this.
On Monday I called T-Mobile again and talked to someone about the situation... specifically about my concerns regarding double-billing since I have an active T-Mobile account right now and I have to keep my AT&T service active until the conversion is complete or I forfeit my number. The T-Mobile rep was very sympathetic and said that she would take care of it by making sure I am not charged for my T-Mobile service until after the portability request is successfully completed.
It is now Wednesday. 9 days since I submitted my port request. Three days since I sent an eMail to AT&T Customer Care. I still haven't heard anything from AT&T regarding the eMail I sent them on Sunday except for an automated form letter stating that they received my eMail and would respond as quickly as possible. I'm not holding my breath.
I honestly believe that their problems may not be as severe as they claim and that this is, at least partially, an attempt by them to get their existing customers to "give up" on switching to another carrier. Many people who have requested number ports away from AT&T have done just that... after become so frustrated with the delays and excuses they've decided to just stick with AT&T rather than suffer through continued aggravation. If nothing else, AT&T is delaying the departure of dissatisfied customers, forcing them to continue paying for poor quality service until the alleged computer problems are corrected. In fact, a number of customers have reported in various Internet message boards (including AT&T's own support forums) incidents where they have called in to simply cancel their service and were told by the AT&T rep that they couldn't do it at that time because the system was down and that they would need to call back later.
I, personally, intend to continue my quest to move my number to T-Mobile if for no other reason than to make it clear to AT&T that they're not just losing a customer, they're losing a customer to one of their competitors. Number portab
Re:ATT is not playing nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
The day that portability went into effect, they came out with their Customers First [awscustomersfirst.com] deal to convince existing customers to stay. Here's what it consists of: But check out the fine print [awscustomersfirst.com]: Whoo whee! Now I can renew my contract every year with AT&T for the privilege of subsidizing the "free" phones for another two years! Gosh, and they can "free" me of any pesky grandfathered-in deals each time I get my "free" phone.
I'm on AT&T wireless and I like their service, but this customer retention effort is pure crap.
# porting causes me headaches but it's great (Score:3, Interesting)
After you get your number ported to a new carrier test it from every carrier you can get your hands on. If you don't mind the one time costs do some 10-10 dial arounds to test some LD carriers. If you have any small telcos in your area be sure to test from them. Typically the smaller the telco the worse the porting results. (but many times they are the easiest convince to make a fix) And be sure to test the number by originating a call from your old provider. Providers are notorious for not pulling the routing for the ported number and then don't forward the call.
If you do end up getting a problem with reaching your number after the port bitch up a storm to your new carrier. They do have the power and the ability to get in touch with the companies that are screwing things up and they can get these things fixed. Don't let them tell you otherwise. It will probably take 2 days to a week to get the problem fixed but make no mistake they can get it fixed for you.
After saying all this I want to say that number portability for the most part is great. After all the initial hurdles are out of the way we almost never have a problem with the number ever again.
its exactly what i've been waiting for (Score:2, Interesting)
Number Portability Cut My Bill by $10 So Far (Score:3, Interesting)
Flawed due to hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
If real portability existed it would help not only the consumer by allowing them to actually change what company they want, but would allow a greater choice of phones. Instead of the half-dozen that your carrier supports you'd have access to all of the phones on the market. A move that would spur the development of phones further and help to weed out the bad designs even more.
Don't get me wrong, number portability is a nice step, but hardware portability will be the big one.
Piece of Cake (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It makes me laugh... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's almost as if they knew that customers wanted this and they can make a profit by offering it! What a radical notion!
Re:I did... (Score:2, Interesting)
Cingular's really picky about "stuff" with other carriers. I've been trying to get my Sony Ericsson T226 unlocked so I can stop it from bouncing between two networks every 15 seconds, and they insist on a signed letter from the other company.
I have a feeling that Cingular is one of the companies that concentrates on getting new customers with free (or cheap) phones, pretty good service plans, and annoying TV ads. Then they give you not mediocre, but okay/so-so service, and try to make it hard for you to switch providers or do anything.