A story of porting from O2 to Vodafone...

I live in West Dorset and in my village there is minimal reception on
any network, probably the least is on O2. Orange and Vodafone work...
just.

So after 2 years of O2 (I was in London a lot so didn't worry too much
about reception issues at home) I decided that it was about time to
ditch O2 and move elsewhere.

I really like my 2 year old Motorola V600 phone, probably most because
it has all my contact details for people on it and it looks nice. So I
decided to shop around for sim only contracts and found that of
Vodafone and Orange, V was the only one to offer a sim only contract.
£25 a month, 250 mins and 1000 texts.

So I phone up O2 and double check i'm not committed to them in any way
(I did renew my contract with them last year in return for £200
credited to my account), and asked for the PAC code.

My number originated with Orange in 2000. Then in 2003 I ported it to
t-mobile then shortly after to BT Mobile and in October 2004 to O2
(online contract). So I thought I was fairly knowledgable about the
ins-and-outs of porting.

I then ordered the Vodafone sim contract through their shop. At which
time (this has only been available in the last 2 weeks... perhaps in
response to a snail mail letter I sent to Vodafone complaining) there
was no option to port your number online at the point of purchase. Few
days later the sim arrived. Put it into my phone and was pleased to see
a reasonable amount of vodafone signal.

The first thing I did was to call the vodafone customer services to
arrange portage. But was told that it was not possible for this to
happen after a number had been assigned to a contract (unlike my
experiences with t-mobile/BT Mobile/O2 (online)). So, I was told to
cancel the contract, send back the sim to Vodafone by special delivery
(cost: £4.00) and to phone their shop and when tell them that I wanted
to port a number across to a sim only contract.

Sim goes back to Vodafone. Letter telling them they're wasting lots of
call centre people's time by not telling you in BIG BOLD LETTERS on
their website that you can only port in to a new contract and this can
only be done over the phone.

Few days later I phone up and do it that way. Few days after that new
sim arrives and a couple of days later it is the day of transition...

Sim goes in. Turn on. "Unregistered Sim".

Phone up vodafone again. Yes, they say, there are problems with the
porting, but they insist it is problems with O2. I hang on the line
whilst the customer services chap speaks to the porting department.
Minutes pass. Then he comes back, humours me and goes back to hold.
Eventually he tells me that whilst i've been on hold he's been speaking
with the porting dept who in turn have been on to O2 and now it is all
set for a week later... About 20 days after my original request for the
PAC code. No need for a new sim to be sent out though.

It is now a week later.

Sim goes in. Turn on. "Unregistered Sim".

<<Sigh of mild dispair>>

Well it is early in the day and apparently this porting business can
take a while (though my previous porting experiences all happened very
smoothly).

Will keep you updated. Hopefully it'll all be working fine by this
evening.

I would ask if anyone has had similar experiences porting to Vodafone,
but after a brief look at this group everyone is porting away from
Vodafone. Inspires me with confidence.

Still no activity, though my O2 sim is now dead.

When I call my number from the landline I am told that the number is
not recognised and to call the operator on 100 "from your mobile". -
Sounds like it must be coming from either O2 or Vodafone.

Bill wrote:
> I live in West Dorset and in my village there is minimal reception on
> any network, probably the least is on O2. Orange and Vodafone work...
> just.
>
> So after 2 years of O2 (I was in London a lot so didn't worry too much
> about reception issues at home) I decided that it was about time to
> ditch O2 and move elsewhere.
>
> I really like my 2 year old Motorola V600 phone, probably most because
> it has all my contact details for people on it and it looks nice. So I
> decided to shop around for sim only contracts and found that of
> Vodafone and Orange, V was the only one to offer a sim only contract.
> £25 a month, 250 mins and 1000 texts.
>
> So I phone up O2 and double check i'm not committed to them in any way
> (I did renew my contract with them last year in return for £200
> credited to my account), and asked for the PAC code.
>
> My number originated with Orange in 2000. Then in 2003 I ported it to
> t-mobile then shortly after to BT Mobile and in October 2004 to O2
> (online contract). So I thought I was fairly knowledgable about the
> ins-and-outs of porting.
>
> I then ordered the Vodafone sim contract through their shop. At which
> time (this has only been available in the last 2 weeks... perhaps in
> response to a snail mail letter I sent to Vodafone complaining) there
> was no option to port your number online at the point of purchase. Few
> days later the sim arrived. Put it into my phone and was pleased to see
> a reasonable amount of vodafone signal.
>
> The first thing I did was to call the vodafone customer services to
> arrange portage. But was told that it was not possible for this to
> happen after a number had been assigned to a contract (unlike my
> experiences with t-mobile/BT Mobile/O2 (online)). So, I was told to
> cancel the contract, send back the sim to Vodafone by special delivery
> (cost: £4.00) and to phone their shop and when tell them that I wanted
> to port a number across to a sim only contract.
>
> Sim goes back to Vodafone. Letter telling them they're wasting lots of
> call centre people's time by not telling you in BIG BOLD LETTERS on
> their website that you can only port in to a new contract and this can
> only be done over the phone.
>
> Few days later I phone up and do it that way. Few days after that new
> sim arrives and a couple of days later it is the day of transition...
>
> Sim goes in. Turn on. "Unregistered Sim".
>
> Phone up vodafone again. Yes, they say, there are problems with the
> porting, but they insist it is problems with O2. I hang on the line
> whilst the customer services chap speaks to the porting department.
> Minutes pass. Then he comes back, humours me and goes back to hold.
> Eventually he tells me that whilst i've been on hold he's been speaking
> with the porting dept who in turn have been on to O2 and now it is all
> set for a week later... About 20 days after my original request for the
> PAC code. No need for a new sim to be sent out though.
>
> It is now a week later.
>
> Sim goes in. Turn on. "Unregistered Sim".
>
> <<Sigh of mild dispair>>
>
> Well it is early in the day and apparently this porting business can
> take a while (though my previous porting experiences all happened very
> smoothly).
>
> Will keep you updated. Hopefully it'll all be working fine by this
> evening.
>
> I would ask if anyone has had similar experiences porting to Vodafone,
> but after a brief look at this group everyone is porting away from
> Vodafone. Inspires me with confidence.

Bill wrote:

> I would ask if anyone has had similar experiences porting to Vodafone,
> but after a brief look at this group everyone is porting away from
> Vodafone. Inspires me with confidence.

Although we have ported six numbers from Orange to Vodafone over the
past 9 months. Only one went wrong - it was delayed by a week. There
was no real loss of service as the Orange side continued to work for
that extra week.

Still dead.

Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?

I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed midnight, it
just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 - 15
minutes.

I can't believe it wouldn't be automated!

Colin Forrester wrote:
> Bill wrote:
>
> > I would ask if anyone has had similar experiences porting to Vodafone,
> > but after a brief look at this group everyone is porting away from
> > Vodafone. Inspires me with confidence.
>
> Although we have ported six numbers from Orange to Vodafone over the
> past 9 months. Only one went wrong - it was delayed by a week. There
> was no real loss of service as the Orange side continued to work for
> that extra week.

"Bill" <kkpb9055@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1159181544.648906.236930@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
> Still dead.

Not surprised.

> Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?

Yes.

> I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed midnight, it
> just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 - 15
> minutes.

Ports happen between 11am and 4pm. There will be loss of service in the
interim. Should be running by 4. It's not automated.

Simon

At 3pm, the sim is still showing as unregistered.

But one change, when phoning up the number... the message is now from
BT (I think).

(after arpeggio of beeps) "The number you have dialled has not been
recognised, please check and try again"

Perhaps the message the first time I dialled was from O2, and now it's
kind of a no man's land before going over to Vodafone.

Simon Ough wrote:
> "Bill" <kkpb9055@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:1159181544.648906.236930@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
> > Still dead.
>
> Not surprised.
>
> > Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?
>
> Yes.
>
> > I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed midnight, it
> > just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 - 15
> > minutes.
>
> Ports happen between 11am and 4pm. There will be loss of service in the
> interim. Should be running by 4. It's not automated.
>
> Simon

Phoned up at 4pm, and spoke to porting dept. They said there was a
problem, but within an hour they'd solved it.

Now with Vodafone... for better or worse!
Bill wrote:
> At 3pm, the sim is still showing as unregistered.
>
> But one change, when phoning up the number... the message is now from
> BT (I think).
>
> (after arpeggio of beeps) "The number you have dialled has not been
> recognised, please check and try again"
>
> Perhaps the message the first time I dialled was from O2, and now it's
> kind of a no man's land before going over to Vodafone.
>
> Simon Ough wrote:
> > "Bill" <kkpb9055@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:1159181544.648906.236930@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
> > > Still dead.
> >
> > Not surprised.
> >
> > > Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > > I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed midnight, it
> > > just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 - 15
> > > minutes.
> >
> > Ports happen between 11am and 4pm. There will be loss of service in the
> > interim. Should be running by 4. It's not automated.
> >
> > Simon

Hi Bill,

I work for Vodafone and am sorry to hear of the difficulties you've
been having. If you still have problems I'd suggest you go to
www.vodafone.co.uk, select 'contact us' then 'email'. If you include
your relevant account details and type the short-code FIT135 in the
body of your email this code will automatically direct your question to
a member of our online email team who'll be able to chase this matter
up with Vodafone's porting department.

This way I hope our staff will finally be able to sort this out for
you. Again I'm sorry to hear that this has taken so long to sort out.

Bill wrote:
> Phoned up at 4pm, and spoke to porting dept. They said there was a
> problem, but within an hour they'd solved it.
>
> Now with Vodafone... for better or worse!
> Bill wrote:
> > At 3pm, the sim is still showing as unregistered.
> >
> > But one change, when phoning up the number... the message is now from
> > BT (I think).
> >
> > (after arpeggio of beeps) "The number you have dialled has not been
> > recognised, please check and try again"
> >
> > Perhaps the message the first time I dialled was from O2, and now it's
> > kind of a no man's land before going over to Vodafone.
> >
> > Simon Ough wrote:
> > > "Bill" <kkpb9055@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
> > > news:1159181544.648906.236930@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
> > > > Still dead.
> > >
> > > Not surprised.
> > >
> > > > Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?
> > >
> > > Yes.
> > >
> > > > I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed midnight, it
> > > > just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 - 15
> > > > minutes.
> > >
> > > Ports happen between 11am and 4pm. There will be loss of service in the
> > > interim. Should be running by 4. It's not automated.
> > >
> > > Simon

Well Voda's CS is usually better than O2's, however what out for those
surprise price rises.

I switched from Voda to BTC in 1987 (probably one of the first ever to
change networks in the UK) after Voda hiked off peak call rates by 66% and
never went back - so 19 years' lost business for Voda so far.

PS in those days you couldn't keep your number.

"MinervaUK" <vtest27@mail2web.com> wrote in message
news:1159284592.818579.86610@m7g2000cwm.googlegrou ps.com...
> Hi Bill,
>
> I work for Vodafone and am sorry to hear of the difficulties you've
> been having. If you still have problems I'd suggest you go to
> www.vodafone.co.uk, select 'contact us' then 'email'. If you include
> your relevant account details and type the short-code FIT135 in the
> body of your email this code will automatically direct your question to
> a member of our online email team who'll be able to chase this matter
> up with Vodafone's porting department.
>
> This way I hope our staff will finally be able to sort this out for
> you. Again I'm sorry to hear that this has taken so long to sort out.
>
> Bill wrote:
>> Phoned up at 4pm, and spoke to porting dept. They said there was a
>> problem, but within an hour they'd solved it.
>>
>> Now with Vodafone... for better or worse!
>> Bill wrote:
>> > At 3pm, the sim is still showing as unregistered.
>> >
>> > But one change, when phoning up the number... the message is now from
>> > BT (I think).
>> >
>> > (after arpeggio of beeps) "The number you have dialled has not been
>> > recognised, please check and try again"
>> >
>> > Perhaps the message the first time I dialled was from O2, and now it's
>> > kind of a no man's land before going over to Vodafone.
>> >
>> > Simon Ough wrote:
>> > > "Bill" <kkpb9055@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
>> > > news:1159181544.648906.236930@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
>> > > > Still dead.
>> > >
>> > > Not surprised.
>> > >
>> > > > Does anyone have any insight on how the porting is undertaken?
>> > >
>> > > Yes.
>> > >
>> > > > I assumed that it was all automated and that at, I assumed
>> > > > midnight, it
>> > > > just changes over - perhaps with minor delays of no more than 10 -
>> > > > 15
>> > > > minutes.
>> > >
>> > > Ports happen between 11am and 4pm. There will be loss of service in
>> > > the
>> > > interim. Should be running by 4. It's not automated.
>> > >
>> > > Simon
>