How mobile number porting works

[QuintonB]

How mobile number porting works

When your operator has angered you to the point where you want to jump ship, this is the road your number will travel

 

[HavocXphere]

How mobile number porting works

Badly in my experience.

 

[Chris.Geerdts]

How number porting is supposed to work

I am a consultant with a few years of porting experience and can confirm that MTN does not release postpaid numbers as it should

 

[Ecco]

I have been trying to port to Mtn since Wednesday last week. Still no joy.

 

[Captain Beer]

I have been trying to port to Mtn since Wednesday last week. Still no joy.

Port TO MTN? Why would you do such a thing?

 

[Ecco]

Port TO MTN? Why would you do such a thing?

At some point in time I have had a contract with one of each of the service providers. They all suck to be honest.

At the moment, Mtn just happen to have the best coverage where I live and work.

 

[Captain Beer]

At some point in time I have had a contract with one of each of the service providers. They all suck to be honest.

At the moment, Mtn just happen to have the best coverage where I live and work.

Good luck. I was with them for 14 years. Things deteriorated rapidly over the last two. Even when my phone showed full signal the call quality was awful.

 

[spidaman]

I put in a request to port to TM on Saturday. And I'm still waiting for it go through. Currently on Cell C prepaid.

 

[CaptSpaceMonkey]

I have been trying to port to Mtn since Wednesday last week. Still no joy.

Dude took me 4 months to port.
Lessons
1) Do not have a contract with a 3rd party such as Autopage.
2) Assume that the guy you are working for will make a mistake.

 

[Necropolis]

I've only ported a number twice - when porting was first available - moved my prepaid number from MTN to Virgin Mobile - moved it back a few years later.

Because of this I've had the same number now for 12 years or so.

 

[Angemon]

Last week I ported from MTN to FNB. I activated the new sim just after 3pm on Wednesday and by 8pm the process was completed. I am on prepaid. Was very impressed.

 

[LaraC]

It seems that you’re likely to experience less problems when you port after you’ve changed your contract to prepaid.

 

[cr@zydude]

How number porting is supposed to work

I am a consultant with a few years of porting experience and can confirm that MTN does not release postpaid numbers as it should

I moved from MTN, after my contract expired, to a Telkom Mobile contract. It took a little over 3 days. That was in December 2013.

 

[Ecco]

Still battling today. If you can believe it, i am going through stuff with an MTN staff member via email. 20 emails so far.

Asked if i could call him, or he call me - met with no response.

 

[cr@zydude]

Still battling today. If you can believe it, i am going through stuff with an MTN staff member via email. 20 emails so far.

Asked if i could call him, or he call me - met with no response.

MTN's call centre is hopeless, just before I left, I had a true gem.

I called to tell them that I want to end my contract, and not go onto month to month. I am asked some security questiins to confirm my identity. I was asked when I took out my contract, so I said October or November 2011, since it was to expire in November 2013.

The lady then tells me, she doesn't want the date that I last renewed my contract, but when I first took out the contract with MTN. I didn't know it was sometime back in 1998 or 99, and it had been renewed ever since.

That wasn't good enough for their security clearance, and I had to go into a store instead. I mean really, that one got to me!

 

[ripclaw]

The article mentions that you can authorise the port to the donor network via an SMS. Does anyone know what the Telkom Mobile number is that I can SMS?

Ta.

 

[Pixelbender]

The article mentions that you can authorise the port to the donor network via an SMS. Does anyone know what the Telkom Mobile number is that I can SMS?

Ta.

081 160 7678

 

[Valerion]

I cancelled my MTN contract, and moved my SIM to prepaid. Was planning to buy a Google Pixel and move onto Afrihost. However, with that not materializing, I decided to get a LG V20 instead, which was last week only available on a Vodacom contract.

Moving from contract to prepaid on MTN was not a fun experience, dealing with the call centre. Porting took a few days, but was otherwise a breeze, perhaps because it was from a prepaid SIM.

What did catch me was that ABSA (correctly) flagged my SIM as swapped, and blocked any transactions requiring an OTP. However, that block was not actually lifted after 36 hours like they claimed, and I had to go through the fraud department to get the block lifted again. This is a good initiative IMO.