Moving Mobiles
I recently changed my mobile phone provider as many of us do from time to time. I needed to take my number with me and so had to go through the number portability process.
Well, customer-friendly it ain’t. You have to call your current provider to get the PAC code. You then have to call the new provider to give this to them. At some point within a week or so the switch is made. In the meantime, you have a temporary number.
There are several problems with this approach.
The temporary number is a pain as people register this as a new number for you if you use it as they tend to just reply to incoming messages and calls.
Timing the ending of the old contract so that you do not either lose credit or overpay for it is ‘challenging’.
You have to make the calls yourself to customer ’service’ lines that like to keep you waiting… and waiting…
I know that the companies do not want to encourage switching but they could surely make it easier than this?
I would expect in a truly competitive market to be able to walk into a shop, have the calls made there and then to the provider I am leaving, and, with the appropriate authorities given and verified, to walk out with my old number working on my new mobile. If I lose my mobile, then my current provider can enable a new phone very quickly on the same number, so I cannot see any technical barriers to this sort of rapid switching. But maybe I am missing something?
I heard recently that text messages sent to numbers that have been ported find it much more difficult to reach their intended destination. You’d think the mobile phone companies could get that right before worrying about 3G.
In my case, the provider actually forced a switch! They were unable to transfer a
contract from my father (a present, five years ago) to me after x calls to customer service lines. The infernal machine that is their customer relationship management system was unable to trigger a form to be sent to me to sign after I logged a request and my father gave his permission for the contract to be transfer.
*Eventually* some employee realised that it couldn’t actually be done because the contract was on an ‘old database,’ and so our only option was for my father to end the contract – but I couldn’t then take out a new contract with the same number! In order to keep my number I would have to apply for a PAC, move to another operator and return to them later. I don’t think I will be doing…I’m sticking with the new one, for obvious reasons!
I ported my phone some time ago from Orange to le Voda then later realised that other people calling me were still seeing me as Orange. I have wasted my time talking to Voda’s customer services about it. Can anyone tell me what I have to do to be seen as a Voda number on the network?