Cell to Vonage Transfer Successful!

Posts: 58 · Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:54 am Post subject:

Hey Everyone:

FWIW, midnight rolled around and passed nearly 4 hours ago, and the transfer still doesn't appear to be finished. Calls to my old cell number still have my old cell voice mail pick-up. The line also doesn't ring. However, on the positive front the provisioning status information for my router does state the new number, and records of the incoming calls are showing up in the Dashboard.

I get the feeling it's a case of Vonage having their setup finished, but Fido hasn't quite removed everything.

I'll wait until Tuesday -- if it isn't right by then, I'll let Vonage know. I'll keep everyone here apprised.

Yaz.

Posts: 58 · Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject:

dabones wrote:

Congrats!! and thanks for this, please let us know if/when it does for sure work, and your fido is cancelled.. I will be sure to pass this info along to howardforums.com, ppl there will be happy to know this is another option for them... Smile

(for anyone who hasn't been there, it's a North America-Wide cell phone forum)

Well, good news -- the transfer appears to have finalized today. When I call my old cell line, it's ringing my Vonage phone, and the Vonage voicemail picks up. Huzzah!

I'll have to wait to find out if Fido is properly cancelled, mind you. Hopefully it is -- I'll check my phone when I get out later today (I have no signal here).

Yaz.

Posts: 58 · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 3:47 am Post subject:

dabones wrote:

Congrats!! and thanks for this, please let us know if/when it does for sure work, and your fido is cancelled.. I will be sure to pass this info along to howardforums.com, ppl there will be happy to know this is another option for them... Smile

(for anyone who hasn't been there, it's a North America-Wide cell phone forum)

Okay -- an update. As previously mentioned, the transfer was a success, however things have since become, well, problematic.

It started last week when I decided to check my voicemail from the office using the web interface. Vonage's website gave me two options for voicemail access -- one for my softphone line, and one for the old primary number (which is now a virtual number, with the transfered number being my main account number). Selecting the old (now virtual) number would result in an error.

Figuring this wasn't a critical problem, I decided to use the e-mail support mechanism. Having other more important things to do in life, I forgot about it.

Nearly a week later, I started hearing that people had tried to call me on the virtual number (which is in my local area code), but were getting a message stating that the line had been disconnected. I tried it myself, and sure enough I got the same message (from both within and outside Vonage's network). Checking my account on their website, there was no longer _any_ record of my virtual number.

This is obviously more serious, so I called their technical support line. I've never actually called Vonage about anything before, but fortunately I got a real, live person in less than 30 seconds. He seemed genuinely surprised that this had happened. It took a bit of time on their end, but they fixed the problem immediately.

Or so they said. I tried calling my virtual number from my softphone, but only got a fast busy signal. Being relatively late at this point, I decided to leave it until the morning. It was the same way in the morning, but before I called I decided to check the web interface. Sure enough, it showed my virtual number as being assigned to me -- checking a bit deeper, it turned out that the virtual number had been erroneously set to forward to my softphone -- correcting it online fixed the problem immediately.

That was two days ago. Yesterday, I got an e-mail saying they've escalated the web voicemail issue, and will get back to me shortly. They've obviously done something, as the only number that now shows up for the voicemail drop-down box is my virtual number.

In overview:

Good: Vonage has moved very quickly to fix these issues. My tech support experience was top notch.

Bad: The voicemail issue still isn't fixed. And the fix to the virtual number wasn't completed correctly -- but at least I was able to fix it myself from my account page.

Ugly: Vonage shouldn't have caused this problem in the first place. I get the distinct feeling that someone deleted my virtual number entirely while they were trying to "fix" the voicemail issue.

In summation, it's annoying that I've run into these problems, and it's funny having to explain to organizations who tried calling in this time that I didn't give them the wrong phone number, but that the phone company screwed up and disconnected it (and then tell them that yes, I always pay the bills). However, their technical support really came through getting me my virtual number back, so they are obviously working hard to correct their mistakes.

FWIW.

Yaz.

Posts: 208 · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 9:39 am Post subject:

Interesting. Did you try calling your local access number to get your voicemail?

Posts: 58 · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 1:36 pm Post subject:

noct wrote:

Interesting. Did you try calling your local access number to get your voicemail?

That works fine, which is why I felt that not being able to check/manage it on the we was a bit of a low priority. Still, I often do check and manage it online, so it is something I do want fixed. However, until it is, it isn;t as if I'm without voicemail access -- simply web-based voicemail access.

Yaz.