How common are porting problems ?

cherryade44

I have 4 sims with Plusnet and all have to move another provider. I decided to try Lebara , me  and my partner have been using their sims alongside the plusnet ones. I have been happy with sim (  signal etc ) So decided to move our numbers to Lebara. My partner said she would go first and submitted a PAC code. Yesterday she received an email to say the transfer was complete. All is ok except the phone cannot receive incoming calls. Just been onto live chat and was told to wait till midnight.
You would think in this day and age moving numbers should be straight forward. I am now very worried about moving my number.  The other 2 sims belong to family members and have to move too. I was going to recommend Lebara but have changed my mind. 
Are all companies the same ? Is it worth paying more for a better customer service eg Tesco ? 
While Lebara responded quickly , I feel they were just fobbing us off , we will see 

savergrant

To be honest I would imagine porting problems are down to human error. I would guess that when you join a virtual operator they have to pass the info to the physical provider (ee/vodafone/o2/3) who then associate the number with the sim. So that may be an extra step where mistakes can happen. If there is a problem there may also be different levels of response and urgency between providers.

savergrant

Just out of interest what happens when someone tries to call her on the ported number? What happens if the old plusnet sim is in the phone? By my understanding incoming and outgoing, calls and texts are connected separately. as is mobile data. So one connection may have been missed/had a fault?

cherryade44

savergrant said:

Just out of interest what happens when someone tries to call her on the ported number? What happens if the old plusnet sim is in the phone? By my understanding incoming and outgoing, calls and texts are connected separately. as is mobile data. So one connection may have been missed/had a fault?

@savergrant , thanks for replying. There was a period yesterday after the transfer was completed where if i rang the number I got through to the Plusnet voicemail ( the previous provider ) This eventually stopped. If I ring the number now , there is complete silence,and after about 10 seconds the call ends automatically. Texts can be sent and received, calls can be made outbound and data works
The old Plusnet SIM has been removed and put into a old unused phone which says there is no service

brook_heather

Porting problems do occur - my wife had a split port when moving to Virgin whereas my two other accounts ported fine - similar issue reported here:
https://community.plus.net/t5/Mobile/Porting-out-issue/m-p/1922814

mcderd

I had a port from Plusnet to Smarty yesterday, Smarty say the port was successful, but I have the same issue, outgoing calls work and show the correct number, and incoming calls go to Plusnet voicemail. I have just spoken to Plusnet and it seems the problem is at their end, it's what they call a "Split Port" As always with these things the normal answer is just wait. But they did confirm that they have had calls this morning from people with the same problem.

savergrant

My guess is that it is an engineer doing a rush job somewhere. As I understand it calls and texts have to be switched over separately. and there seems to be a distinction between incoming and outgoing. In the case with the port to smarty it would sound as though plusnet/ee didn't disconnect incoming calls in time for smarty/3 to connect. This may also have been the case with op's port. I would guess that once plusnet had done their bit lebara/vodafone will be notified and can then do theirs. It is possible the notification didn't go through, someone didn't see it, or it came too late for yesterday's shift. Hopefully it will all be sorted today for you both.

cherryade44

Thanks for replies . Just rang Plusnet and they said wait till midnight, so nothing more to be done really. Will report back if anything changes. Once again thanks for replying everybody 

cherryade44

Well I'm very happy to report everything is working as it should now. Not sure if Plusnet or Lebara did anything or it just updated on it's own. I will transfer to Lebara myself soon. I will speak to my other family members on my account and let them make up their own minds, they will be paying their own bills afterwards. Cheers, great forum