Can I move my cell phone #?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 26, 2007 Posts: 2

The vonage sales department says there is a CRTC ruling preventing them from transferring my cell phone.

I have found very mixed information online:

A Number Transfer Authorization is required when transferring your home or cell phone number over to our service. The Number Transfer Authorization must be signed by the account holder whose name is listed on the existing service.

http://www.vonage.ca/help.php?article=1269&refer_id=C_JUNCTION&promo_id=VC_Promo_4

This one says:

Q. Can I transfer an existing cellular number to Vonage service?

A. No. Wireless Number Portability is not yet available in Canada. You can only transfer a traditional phone number.
http://www.vonage.ca/features.php?feature=lnp&refer_id=C_JUNCTION&promo_id=VC_Promo_4

This is what is on the CRTC website:
VoIP Subscribers

VoIP is a technology, not a service. The same number portability rules apply to service providers using VoIP technology as other telephone service providers. Therefore, customers are free to take their telephone numbers with them when switching between VoIP, traditional phone line companies or wireless service providers.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1021.htm

Has anyone transferred their cell phone number to vontage?

Thanks

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 21, 2007 Posts: 4

Here's another quote from a CRTC "de-regulation" last week.

Who knows how this applies to Vonage VoIP?

"Cellular telephones have become a little more mobile today as a regulatory change makes wireless phone numbers as portable as the tiny devices that place the calls.

"It's a way of making the customer's life a lot simpler," Peter Barnes, CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday.

Wireless number portability (WNP) is the result of 18 months of work by Canada's cellular carriers after the federal government asked the industry to make it happen.

With the technical details ironed out, telephone customers are now able to transfer their service from one company to another without having to change phone numbers.

Canada is only the second country in the world to offer "complete wireless-to-wireless, wireless-to-wireline and wireline-to-wireless portability," the CWTA said in a written statement Wednesday.

Until now, cellular phone numbers were controlled and assigned by the companies and most customers were locked into term contracts.

Wireless number portability will allow customers to shop around for a better service plan and price without having to change their phone number."

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

Since you are now able to port your cell phone number to another cell phone carrier, I would think that you could port the number over to Vonage, but that number has to be a local number for Vonage. What I mean is that number has to be in the Vonage calling area.

Another note on the cell phone number porting, that is the biggest scam going. Say you have a Bell cell phone plan, but you want to move you number to Rogers. Sure you can do that but you have to buy a Rogers phone or sign up for another 2 or 3 year contract! These phones use a different technology.

Posts: 58 · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:57 am Post subject: Re: Can I move my cell phone #?

Yes, you can port your cell number to Vonage Canada. I did this myself back in April, moving my Fido 416 (Toronto) number to my Vonage service.

You can set this up on their website. I used the option to keep my old Vonage number as a virtual number, and make the ported number my primary number (which makes no difference to people calling us -- although outbound calls show the Toronto number for Caller ID -- which confuses people as I'm now living in BC Smile

). It took a bit longer than the normally quoted time, but I got the feeling I may have been the first person to try this (as I filed for it perhaps a week after the cell companies started to voluntarily support number portability).

As a bonus, my Fido service was automatically cancelled. I never had to deal with them, or have someone try to talk me into a different plan before handling my disconnection request. It was totally painless.

Yaz.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 2

Yaztromo wrote:

Yes, you can port your cell number to Vonage Canada. I did this myself back in April, moving my Fido 416 (Toronto) number to my Vonage service.
Yaz.

Fido is not a good example. It is the only cell company that also had a CLEC status, so porting between Fido and landlines has been possible for years.

Porting from other cell companies is possible since March 2007, but I am not sure if Vonage supports it.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 26, 2007 Posts: 2

You are able to port your cell number, they haven't updated all of their call centers and website yet.

Thanks,

Nick