Porting a Sprint number

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 1

I have been waiting for month to get my landline number ported from Sprint to Vonage. I received this email today...

"I am contacting you to inform you that we have been updated from our
carrier. Our carrier which is working with your number being
transfered is Focal Communications has rejected your number transfer. The reason why they rejected your number transfer because they do not port numbers that are owned by Sprint. Your number do not have to be with Sprint but the circuit that your number runs through is owned by Sprint. We cannot port numbers that are in Sprint territory. I am apologize for any inconvenience. If you have questions please do not hesitate in contacting us."

Has anyone run into this? What can I do? I ran the number on the Vonage site before I signed up and it said that the number was portable.
Thanks for any and all assistance.

Posts: 24 · Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:20 pm Post subject:

I ported my number from Sprint. i had Sprint Complete Sense in Pennsylvania. It took about thirty days. I did contact Sprint after about 25 days and they said they had received a request for transfer and it would occur in 5 days. It did. Sprint was very helpful and even refunded me 10 days service since they felt they were responsible for some of the delay.

You might want to call them. Good luck.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 22, 2005 Posts: 2

I have been waiting for more than 6 weeks now. When I asked Vonage how much longer it would take they said they couldn't do it, I should look on the web site and try again when the web site said that they could do my exchange. But on the web site it says they CAN do my exchange! Sprint says no problem on their end - my number is ok to be transferred out! When pressed over and over again (maybe six go rounds of asking a straigtforward question and getting an answer that makes no sense at all) Vonage says Sprint won't transfer the number to Focal Communications. If they can't transfer these Sprint numbers in Sussex County - then why are they on the web site? Has - ANYONE - sucessfully transferred a Sprint number in Sussex County, NJ to Vonage ????

Posts: 127 · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:11 pm Post subject:

Im actually from Sussex county and know a few people that had the same problem with LNP. The bottom line is Sprint has a monopoly up there in the woods of Sussex and if they start letting people port their numbers the more customers they lose. If you still decide you want Viop service then you may have to change your number and I believe it would be a morristown number. Sad

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 22, 2005 Posts: 2

You can get a Sussex County (Newton) exchange (362), it just won't be one of the traditional existing ones, and moving your existing number to Vonage remains an unknown? Based on the other posts I keep hoping that it might take a long time, but that eventually it will go through.

Posts: 127 · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 3:38 pm Post subject:

The person I spoke of that had the Morristown exchange happened about a year and a half ago so im sure its much improved now. Newton is way better then Morristown! Believe me, Vonage will do what it can to get the number cause they understand that many people would not be interested in joining if you couldnt keep your number.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 13, 2005 Posts: 1

My guess is that Vonage's IT systems are considerably more modern than those in many of the local exchange carrier's operations, and it is the latter which is the bottleneck. According to the FCC's web page, they may also be in violation of the law, depending upon when the first request for number exchange was made by a competitor.

The most direct way to deal with them is to lodge a formal complaint with the Board of Public Utilities. They are responsible for regulating the service providers.

If they get cc'd on many well written, factual, professional, and critical letters written to the NJ BPU, it may cause them concern enough to act more quickly. The board has the power to deny rate hike requests and other such fun stuff.

Be sure to mention salient facts, but avoid vitriol.

The following sites might be helpful:

Telecommunications Act of 1996 - http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/portable.html
("Telephone number portability must be made available in other areas within six (6) months after a new telephone company requests that the incumbent local telephone company offer telephone number portability in that service area.")

NJ BPU, telecom division -
http://www.bpu.state.nj.us/home/telecommunications.shtml

NJ BPU Online complaint forms -
http://www.bpu.state.nj.us/home/ChooseComplaint.shtml

Other states have their comparable regulatory bodies and processes.

The FCC has a number for concerns regarding number portability: FCC's National Call Center at 1-888-Call FCC (225-5322).

The FCC also has an online complaint form. If you believe a CLEC to be in violation of the 1996 act requiring number portability within 6 months of the initial competitor's request, that may mean something to them (moreso if you can back it up):
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 18, 2005 Posts: 11

enevent wrote:

...
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/portable.html
("Telephone number portability must be made available in other areas within six (6) months after a new telephone company requests that the incumbent local telephone company offer telephone number portability in that service area.")
...

Ok, so how do I get Vonage to "ask" Sprint and Alltel to have their numbers available for portability? My dad would kill to have Vonage, but considering he has had his current number from Sprint for over 20 years, he won't switch until he can port his number. On the other side of town, a friend of mine has Alltel and they won't port his number either. Since he has a "cool" number, he won't switch yet either.

How do we get these numbers to be portable??

Thanks!