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Have fun trying to leave 3...
acoolwelshbloke
21-04-2011
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/11/ofcom_porting/

lol just lol, beat my record of 15 minutes all those years ago!
moox
21-04-2011
I had no problem leaving 3 (due to a lack of coverage) - they admitted the coverage was not going to be improved any time soon in my area, offered to end the contract, tried to keep me on with a vastly reduced contract, and gave me my PAC. Only took about 20 minutes.
alanwarwic
21-04-2011
It seems little has changed.

If you have ported a number to another company you will be less able to negotiate a decent retention deal.
This is because the donor company gets a 'lifetime' forwarding fee from every call you make.

That is not in consumers interests but does help keep profits up
moox
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“It seems little has changed.

If you have ported a number to another company you will be less able to negotiate a decent retention deal.
This is because the donor company gets a 'lifetime' forwarding fee from every call you make.

That is not in consumers interests but does help keep profits up”

But that should even out - people port numbers from Network A to Network B, and people leave Network B for Network A and take their number with them.

I wonder if the call goes through every network the number has been with?
Mikay
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by moox:
“But that should even out - people port numbers from Network A to Network B, and people leave Network B for Network A and take their number with them.

I wonder if the call goes through every network the number has been with?”

Makes you wonder. My current number started on Vodafone in July 2005, then I transferred to O2 in October 2007 then went to Virgin Mobile in September 2009 before porting it to 3 last month...
TheBigM
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by Mikay:
“Makes you wonder. My current number started on Vodafone in July 2005, then I transferred to O2 in October 2007 then went to Virgin Mobile in September 2009 before porting it to 3 last month...”

I've been through even more with my number, I think everyone except Vodafone (incl. giffgaff).

Maybe that's why sometimes when dialling people it takes ages between pressing dial and the phone ringing.

What happens if you port back to vodafone, will it annul all the travelling through other networks or will it do one massive circle.
finbaar
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by Mikay:
“Makes you wonder. My current number started on Vodafone in July 2005, then I transferred to O2 in October 2007 then went to Virgin Mobile in September 2009 before porting it to 3 last month...”

I did not know that the calls got forwarded. My number history is

Orange to Three to Tesco to Vodafone and come October Giff Gaff. This is over abou 6 years.
SilentLoner
21-04-2011
Would be very interesting to find out these answers wouldn't it b
alanwarwic
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by moox:
“But that should even out”

Nope.

The older or larger the company, the more numbers they have a lifetime income from.
It puts any small or new company at a major disadvantage.
moox
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Nope.

The older or larger the company, the more numbers they have a lifetime income from.
It puts any small or new company at a major disadvantage.”

Which only really disadvantages 3. The other networks are much older and much more established, and the MVNOs use number ranges owned by their host networks so presumably don't pay anything there.

I don't recall 3 whinging about the costs of the current system (could be wrong), so presumably it's not much of an issue for them.
alanwarwic
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by moox:
“Which only really disadvantages 3.”

In my reckoning it certainly disadvantages us the consumer.
Not as badly as the ridiculous fees charged for 0870,0845 and even Freephone 0800 numbers.
To me that's yet another anti-consumer money making racket.

I'm sure it also effects piggy back companies like GiffGaff, Tesco and Asda and even BT.
The main company to gain has to be Everything Everywhere.
Russ_WWFC
21-04-2011
My number started on BT Cellnet in May 1999!

As for leaving 3, persistence is required from my experience. You have to listen to a hell of a lot of rubbish before you get your PAC Code
moox
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“In my reckoning it certainly disadvantages us the consumer.”

Why?

Porting is free (some networks will actually pay you for porting in, 3 used to give £10, don't know if they still do), and it's not like we pay for incoming calls.

It's not as if our bills would go down (not that they are that expensive anyway) if the porting system is to change.
alanwarwic
21-04-2011
What do you mean why?

Just because there is no advertised surcharge for ported numbers does not mean they do not lose out and have to charge more to stay in profit.
carnivalist
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“It seems little has changed.

If you have ported a number to another company you will be less able to negotiate a decent retention deal.
This is because the donor company gets a 'lifetime' forwarding fee from every call you make.

That is not in consumers interests but does help keep profits up”

Sorry alan, pardon me for being thick, but are you saying that if you were to move from say, Orange to O2, that when your new contract expires, O2 are likely to give you a worse retention deal than Orange would have done?
chris20
21-04-2011
3s customer service really hold the network back from being the biggest and best in uk they offer really good deals phones but when you need help they don't.
alanwarwic
21-04-2011
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“are you saying that if you were to move from say, Orange to O2, that when your new contract expires, O2 are likely to give you a worse retention deal than Orange would have done? ”

I've no idea what the number originator gets for the lifetime of the number.
Until today I never even knew it existed but one has to assume it needs to be taken into account.

When I left 3 a year ago they surprisingly never attempted to retain me at all. Just maybe the lifetime 'port in' fees was a factor.
Roush
22-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“I've no idea what the number originator gets for the lifetime of the number.
Until today I never even knew it existed but one has to assume it needs to be taken into account.

When I left 3 a year ago they surprisingly never attempted to retain me at all. Just maybe the lifetime 'port in' fees was a factor.”

Bear in mind that half of what appears on The Register is either rubbish or outdated. I've found they often try to bend facts to suit the spin they want to put on stories and their information on mobile number routing in that article is a good example.

While it is true that in the early days of mobile number porting calls to ported numbers had to be directed to the original network and then forwarded to the current network Ofcom have been doing a lot to change this.

From 1 September 2009 all mobile to mobile calls are required to be routed directly to the current provider. Only calls that originate from other sources (i.e. landlines) are still permitted to be routed to the original network and then forwarded to the current provider, and these calls must be directly routed by the end of 2012, which is also the date when the same direct routing system must be in place for ported land line numbers.
alanwarwic
22-04-2011
Originally Posted by Roush:
“I've found they often try to bend facts to suit the spin they want to put on stories.”

err it is called humour which is their trait

It is qite easy to spot the facts based stories which are more reliable/informative than any of our tabloids.
Roush
22-04-2011
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“err it is called humour which is their trait

It is qite easy to spot the facts based stories which are more reliable/informative than any of our tabloids.”

Oh I get that, and do often chuckle at their more humorous articles, but there's no reason to be printing untruths (as in the number porting). Their researching can be woefully poor sometimes.
alanwarwic
22-04-2011
Are you sure? For now I'm siding with TheRegister on this one.

From the wiki.
"One of the very few countries to not use ACQ/CDB is the UK where calls to a number once it has been ported are still routed via the Donor network. .......... Indirect Routing also means that if the Donor network develops a fault or goes out of business, the customers who have ported out of that network will lose incoming calls to their numbers"
AJ2001
22-04-2011
I did leave them to go to Tesco Mobile, lured by excellent Iphone deal. Easy to leave them, no hassle at all, 7-8 minutes did the trick. I ll be back to Three by the end of the Summer.
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