[Asterisk-Users] Porting a phone number to a voip provider

[Rich Adamson]

> > Just an FYI... not all cell numbers are portable.
> 
> Do you have any more information on this?  I read somewhere that 
> sometimes you can port a number to a VoIP provider but not be able to 
> port it back to the PSTN because not all PSTN providers will take 
> numbers from VoIP providers.  Is this what you are talking about?

No. Some cell providers do not have the capability to selectively let
a telephone number move to another carrier/telco/itsp. They may have
technical plans to allow/support it, but the hardware/software necessary
to allow/support is not yet in place. Same is true with some smaller
telcos.

I'd also have to "guess" that come cell providers have probably taken a
stand that says they aren't going to do it, regardless of what the 
regulatory folks do/say.

So, the issue with number portability really starts with the company that
currently provides the cell number to you. (Sometimes they don't like
to volunter that info for obvious reasons.) If your number is portable,
then it "should" remain portable regardless of where you move it to, and
you should be able to move it as many times as you'd like.

If you move your number to the "xyz" itsp and don't like their service,
then pick another company and ask "them" to move the number for you. For
them to move it, however, requires an acknowledgement from the previous
company in most cases. In some (rather rare) cases, the previous company
will sometimes drag their feet or refuse to acknowledge the transfer. There
are regulatory escalation processes to address that problem, but usually
it takes a considerable amount of time to get it done.

In some cases, even the larger cell providers play games as they don't want
to lose their numbers, customers, etc. In other cases, some small itsp's
don't have a clue how to support portability or even how to accomplish the
transfer. As you can probably guess, a lot of this has to do with capabilities
to support SS7 (either directly or through another provider), access to shared
databases, etc.