The top 5 porting myths, dispelled

Fiction.

While this seems to make sense for your high-volume numbers and internal communications, it can also be risky to port numbers late at night (or in the morning). Because the rest of the carrier ecosystem is unavailable if things go awry, you could experience hours of disruption instead of minutes, leading to exactly what you’re trying to avoid.

With Bandwidth, you don’t have to port numbers in the middle of the night to avoid disruption. Instead, set up parallel SIP trunks between your current and future comms platforms so that redirecting traffic is as easy as flipping a switch—all so your customers and employees won’t notice a thing.

Note: As long as you don’t cancel services with your existing provider before porting, you won’t experience disruption and your numbers will remain active with the losing carrier until your number transfers to Bandwidth. We use the Firm Order Commitment (FOC) date to perform this coordinated, instant transfer.

Fact.

Porting IS hard, and you’ve probably already experienced the headache of moving numbers between incumbent carriers. To make number management easier on your team, we’ve created a modern, intuitive porting experience. Our dashboard, number porting APIs, and highly-trained porting specialists make moving your numbers easy and stress-free. We call it Happy Porting.

Fiction!

Did you know that Bandwidth has the industry’s only specialized, highly-trained porting team dedicated to making sure your port goes smoothly—and they’re really good at it?! Because we’re a carrier ourselves, we have strong relationships with the other Tier 1 carriers, allowing for speedier, simpler number ports. We can make our own carrier services team accessible to you for things like port outs, disputed ports, and carrier relations if the need arises. You’ll never lose another nights’ sleep again (over porting, at least).

It depends.

There are different types of ports and each type has its own estimated time frame for completion:

• Standard ports take 3-7 business days.
• Simple ports take 3-4 business days.
• Off-net ports take 5-7 business days.
• Toll-free ports take 2-7 business days.
• Complex ports take 3-4 weeks.
• Project ports can take 3-4 weeks.

You can port up to 20,000 phone numbers at one time through our “check portability” page, from an unlimited number of losing carriers. Each order has a limit of 5,000 phone numbers per losing carrier.

Fiction!

Number portability is a requirement established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to the FCC, once you request service from a new provider, your old provider cannot refuse to port your number. However, within the structure of the FCC requirements, = carriers may have different systems and processes for handling porting activity. While carriers’ LNP operations are intended to accomplish the same end results, there are unique differences in processes and procedures.

Note: Carriers can’t refuse to port a number, but there are common port rejections that indicate the information submitted doesn’t match what a losing carrier has on file. Port rejections can significantly delay the time frame for port completion. Learn more about why your port might be rejected.