India Broadband

roymain

1. Porting rules only apply to RBOCs, CLECS, and ILECs. This includes big telephone companies, cell providers like Sprint Wireless and Verizon Wireless, and CLECs like Level 3. VOIP providers like P8 and Vonage are NOT telephone companies subject to porting laws. They own no telephones lines of their own. They lease them from a real telephone company like Level3 ( a CLEC). So complaining to the FCC about a VOIP company and porting won't get you far. They aren't telephone companies, not subject to porting rules, and the FCC isn't likely to deal with it.

2. A VOIP assigned number is usually owned by a CLEC and leased by the VOIP company who then assigns the number for use by you. The VOIP company is the actual "customer" for the phone number, not you. You have no rights to port an assigned VOIP number under portability laws. The CLEC owns the number, the VOIP company is the customer. We sublet the phone numbers from the VOIP company and we have no rights at all to port that number anywhere.

You can never expect to port an assigned VOIP number anywhere according to the portability rules.

Now, we've covered that VOIP companies ARE NOT telephone companies, not subject to porting rules, and do not own any telephone numbers, and when they assign you a number, they are the customer for the number and not you, and you can't port it. Let's move on to numbers you can port:

3. If you do have a phone number in your name from an ILEC, RBOC, or cell provider, you can port it to your VOIP provider who really ports it to their CLEC in your area. Remember, VOIP companies are not telephone companies, CLEC's are so your port is really to a CLEC, not the VOIP company. Incoming calls after porting will go to the CLEC's equipment, not your VOIP providers equipment.

Your number and the CLEC's exchange must be local to each other or you can't port it. That's why it's help to post your area code and exchange when asking for porting help. Someone can tell you whether you should be able to port the number to a VOIP provider but without your AC/exchange, there isn't much anyone can do except console you. "Point of presence" is the legal term here. If your number you want to port is in the same "point of presence" as a VOIP providers CLEC is, then you can port it.

Now, let's say your number and your VOIP providers CLEC are in the same point of presence. What can go wrong? Plenty.

Many telcos are slow to port their numbers, they have no incentive to do so. Your VOIP provider might be slow to initiate the port with the CLEC they use in your city. Or the CLEC who services you locally for your VOIP provider might be slow to accept the port. 3 different companies, all moving at a different pace, are involved in porting a number to a VOIP service. Anyone can cause problems or move slowly. Your VOIP provider might be the problem, or it might be your telco or it might be your local CLEC. Keep on all of them.

So for posting help: Post the area code and exchange of the number you want to port and hopefully, the area code and exchange of the VOIP provider you want to use or at least their name. Someone can check to see if they have a "point of presence" together. If not, no port. Secondly, the name on your phone bill has to match your VOIP bill or no port. Thirdly, you can't port a VOIP assigned number. Don't ask and it's not the VOIP providers fault.

If you want to check yourself, go to: »members.dandy.net/~czg/search.html
and type in your areacode in the NPA box and your exchange in the NXX box and click "submit". Then, when the "prefix search" page comes up, click on your areacode/exchange under "NPA-NXX" and you'll see all your local exchanges that are in your point of presence. They are NOT in numerical order but in order of rate centers so look slowly for your VOIP/CLEC's exchange. If it's in the list, then you can likely port your number. If it isn't in the list, then you probably cannot.

Well, that's a quick summary of the porting rules. It's not everything (like rural and small telcos might not be subject to porting rules at all) and other issues can arise but I think this covers what most people in this forum are asking/complaining about.

Exceptions and mistakes do happen. Rules are meant to be broken as the old saying goes. Some people have ported a VOIP assigned number elsewhere but it's a rarity and won't happen often. A VOIP company can "give up" their rights to a number if they want to but I wouldn't expect that to happen very often. What I've tried to do here is write how it's "supposed" to work, not how it may actually work for anyone. Good luck

Smadanan

Hi,

I work in IT Dep for my company, Recently I had helped one of our employee(residing in US) to port his At&T/SBC number to Packet8. From our end, we have to fill in the LNP(Local number Prtability) forma and a LOA(Letter of Authorisation). Rest all was between AT&T and Packet8. Since then they have had many communication between them self to get this completed, and as a customer we dint had to wait a lot.

So whenever its "Number porting", Apply for it and wait for the best

Thanks and Best Regards
Shree