[ianbhenderson73]

Hi

I don't know if anyone else has found this process to be a major PITA, but I thought I'd document this for you all.

I originally took a contract with Orange in late 2003 and at that point signed up for a brand-new mobile number. I was pretty happy with the service is received from Orange, but when I took my last upgrade with them I was moved onto the EE network (I think because I was going over to 4G). Where I had no problem with Orange's 3G coverage, EE's network seemed to be exceptionally patchy. For example, I could be sitting at home with the mobile resting on the arm of the chair and get a text message telling me that I'd missed a call, even though the phone hadn't moved.

Anyway, when my last contract expired I decided that since my phone's still pretty serviceable I would take a SIM-only package and have got one from 3.

My old number (I've had it for nearly 13 years) was supposed to port over from EE to 3 on Friday but because EE gave me an inaccurate PAC, I missed the deadline and therefore it had to be ported on Monday. However, by the end of Monday I found I was only able to make calls (which presented from my old number) and send texts, but couldn't receive calls or texts on either my old number or the temporary number that 3 had issued to me. A visit to the 3 store in Glasgow yesterday (Tuesday) caused confusion, but the guy in the shop gave me a replacement SIM and advised that I leave the phone switched off for at least an hour, which I did. The reason for the confusion: the 3 chap WAS able to ring me from his mobile (on 3) but not from his landline. When I got home, my confusion deepened because my wife (on EE) was unable to call me.

Prior to 9am the phone was still refusing to accept incoming calls (my wife tried again for our home phone) but in the last hour I've tested it and can now receive calls from both fixed lines and mobiles. I'm also able to receive SMS.

I'm just wondering: is it possible that when 3 initiated the number port, they only set it up so that I could be called from other users on the 3 network? If that's the case, why would it have been done?

Either way, I'm back on the network so I'm happy again

[bikerlad]

This seems to happen a lot, it's not always a seamless transfer and seems to take a while to filter through the system and once the process starts, leave at least 24 hours where it may not work before you complain.

Always PAC over at the start of the week, as nothing happens at weekends and you might be left without service.

[ianbhenderson73]

Yeah, I'm actually heartily glad that I wasn't able to start the process until the beginning of this week. I've done a few tests today and everything is working fine, so I'll pop back into the shop this evening and let the chap I dealt with yesterday know that everything's good to go.

[nigelbb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikerlad

This seems to happen a lot, it's not always a seamless transfer and seems to take a while to filter through the system and once the process starts, leave at least 24 hours where it may not work before you complain.

It's the process that fails not any particular network as we see complaints regarding all operators.

[ianbhenderson73]

I had a feeling it might be a process failure. What doesn't help is that when you start raising issues with your old and new supplier they're only able to tell you the status of the transfer from their perspective. Nobody ever seems willing to tell you that the process itself is potentially flawed...