Porting, potential issue & lack of clarity.

[EF987654]

Hi All. I've taken a 2ndSIM on my account for my teenager. She is going away on a school exchange on Friday morning. Naively I expected 24hrs meant 24hrs, for a number port. I requested the port using the online form yesterday at 7am. The first attempt threw up a web page error, the 2nd gave a confirmation screen. I was expecting text or email confirmations etc, but had nothing. I called cust services yesterday afternoon to check it had been received & was in the process.

The response didn't necessarily acknowledge a form had been submitted, but that the port would happen tonight after 6pm & to expect 2 text messages immediately after the call. No text messages so far. 

Looking on here it sounds like O2 porting has become the nightmare that Vodafone was about 6 or 7 years ago. I'm stuck in a quandary of chase it up & risk the port happening whilst my daughter is abroad, which is a big problem or sending her away with a temporary sim from giffgaff or similar, avoiding the risk of her losing service. 

Any help, thoughts or guidance gratefully received. Thanks 

[EF987654]

This just got worse. The number we are porting, on Sky mobile, is now dead. No sign of any action from O2, the temp number is still active, with no texts or comms from O2 on when / how the port will happen. @O2Sarah- is this something you'd be able to investigate please? 

[O2Sarah-]

Thanks for the tag @EF987654 

I will send you a private message so we can look into this. 

[EF987654]

Thankyou! I've dropped you a response 🙂

[EF987654]

Final update, panicked too soon. It has gone through & all seems to be working. Don;t know if that was intervention of @O2Sarah- from O2 support on here, but if it was, huge Thanks!! 

Just for the benefit of others who may search for this topic; 

The process felt a bit opaque compared to past porting experiences. The online form to request a port doesn't really trigger any confirmations. The text that should arrive confirming porting day, finally arrived after the port had completed. There was a period of a couple of hours where both sims were dead. Maybe that's all normal & i'm just impatient / more anxious, but it is different compared to previous experiences. I think there is an opportunity for O2 to improve the porting experience with confirmation emails / texts / updates etc. I'm also conscious that might be easier to say, than it is to make happen. Anyway, all sorted. Thanks 

[madasaf1sh · Accepted solution]

@EF987654 

The sims going dead is part of the process, and just to be clear it can take upto 24hours for ports to complete, and it is always the day after you submit the form, and normally not on a Friday or a Weekend. 

And to be fair its about time porting was just abolished it a poor process put in by OfCom and involves too many moving parts and reliance on different networks depending on the owner of the number range

[EF987654]

Thanks, that's clear and useful for clarity on this thread for future searches.  My own past experiences over the years were more akin to a sim going dead as the new one went live, within seconds. That's certainly how it went when my main number came to O2 6+ years ago, I think my expectations on how it would go were too high. I am used to getting an email or text in advance, confirming submission of the request, when it would happen, how long to wait & some networks even let you specify a day as part of the request.

Searching the subject online & in forums shows that porting can be troublesome, it's natural in the absence of confirmation or updates, to assume the worst. I think O2 is a great network, but the info they provide around porting does really need reviewing. 

The process is overseen by  https://mnposg.org.uk/ - the exec members are O2, EE, VodaFone & 3 . Although Ofcom impose the requirement (for the flexibility of consumers and to enforce a level of competiton), if it's a problem process, it's in the gift of those 4 profitable operators to improve how it works. 

Useful overview of how the process works behind the scenes

https://mnposg.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MNP2-Manual-issue-2.86.pdf

In the end for me it went pretty well, within 24 hours of form submission & a follow up call to cust services, so no cause for complaint, just observations having been a bit tense about it going wrong..