Porting Ident-A-Call Number

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Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/07/2015

I have a Bell Canada landline with two phone numbers. The line is registered/assigned to the first number. The second number is a Ident-A-Call number, that rings on the same line.

Am I correct to assume that I can port just the Ident-A-Call number to Freephoneline.ca (and leave the first number and landline alone)? Am I correct to assume that Bell Canada will not disrupt my first number?
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/19/2015

I found that that the answer is yes to my previous posting.

However, Bell Canada did not even contact me to get my permission for porting out the number.

If somebody tries to port my number (at Freephoneline) away from me, will Freephoneline contact me first and get my permission?
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby bridonca » 01/19/2015

When you are doing a port request, you are giving Fongo permission to port your Bell number over. Fongo then has to talk to Bell to port the number you specified over, and if Fongo has enough information from you, Bell will grant the port request to Fongo. You do not have to talk to Bell, nor should you.

I do not think Fongo will tell you when your port request is successful. I have never had a telco tell me yet. You are just going to have to check for yourself.
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/19/2015

The only things that Freephoneline asked for, to port my number from Bell Canada to Freephoneline, were:

- my name
- my address
- my phone number

Freephoneline did not verify my identity. Bell did not ask for my permission.

It's easy to get the above 3 pieces of data about other people. It would seem that if any unethical person wanted to, he can take phone numbers away from other people, by creating an account at Freephoneline and put in a request to transfer a number away from a Bell Canada customer.

Let's say, somebody named John is able to get my name, address and number (which is easy to do). Let's say John is unethical and wants to take my number. Can John go to ABC phone company and request to port my number to him at ABC, by pretending to be me? It would seem that this is possible if ABC asks for only the name, address and phone number and does not verify John's identity. If Freephoneline gets this request from ABC, but does not get my permission first, then Freephoneline will give my number to ABC. Is this scenario not possible?
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby bridonca » 01/19/2015

What you are referring to is what is called slamming. It used to be popular in the US. I believe there are severe penalties if a telco tried this foolishness here in Canada, so it is not common here.

The established telcos used to be extremely stingy with the port requests as a strategy to keep the customer stuck with that telco, with the hope the customer would give up and stick with the old telco. I believe there was laws enacted to stop that foolishness, and gets you in the situation you are in now.

Personally, I think this current system is much better. There is much less motivation for a telco to fraudulently slam you, and if they did, you could port back easily enough, with potential penalties waged against the slamming telco. Just remember, you are getting your number ported to you at your address. It is not like it is going to another person.
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/19/2015

Thanks for providing background info into this.

I'm not worried about the telcos stealing or slamming phone numbers. I'm wondering about unethical individuals. It seems that these individuals can easily do this by pretending to be someone else since it is easy to get someone else's name, address and phone number. After he steals the number and puts it on SIP, he probably doesn't care about the address. Haven't there been any cases of this?

It would seem that it would be easy for unethical individuals to slam. It would seem that it should be easy to prevent this if telcos asked the customer (who currently has the number) to verify that he requested the port. Why don't telcos such as Bell Canada (and Freephoneline) do this?
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby bridonca » 01/19/2015

This is my guess. First of all, most phone numbers are not worth much, it is not like there is a huge market for stolen numbers. I am sure the penalty for getting caught is too high compared to the payout. Secondly, there does not seem to be a problem, I have never heard of anyone getting slammed in Canada. Which leads us to the unethical individual that has a hate on another. Again, possible, but other than annoying someone that has to get their number ported over again, it is not much of a problem. I never heard of anyone doing this. A lot of effort for nothing, one would think. Easier to put flaming poop on their door step than involve phone companies in their nasty schemes.

I do not see this happening to Fongo any time soon. Entry fee for this is $25 remember!
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby j8van » 01/19/2015

curt wrote:The only things that Freephoneline asked for, to port my number from Bell Canada to Freephoneline, were:

- my name
- my address
- my phone number

Freephoneline did not verify my identity. Bell did not ask for my permission.

It's easy to get the above 3 pieces of data about other people. It would seem that if any unethical person wanted to, he can take phone numbers away from other people, by creating an account at Freephoneline and put in a request to transfer a number away from a Bell Canada customer.

Let's say, somebody named John is able to get my name, address and number (which is easy to do). Let's say John is unethical and wants to take my number. Can John go to ABC phone company and request to port my number to him at ABC, by pretending to be me? It would seem that this is possible if ABC asks for only the name, address and phone number and does not verify John's identity. If Freephoneline gets this request from ABC, but does not get my permission first, then Freephoneline will give my number to ABC. Is this scenario not possible?

You also have to provide your Bell account # and a latest invoice to Freephoneline (and eventually for Bell to verify they are proceeding a request from the number's real owner), which are not easy for anyone other than you to obtain.
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/19/2015

j8van:

Are you referring to the scenario where one is porting from Bell to Freephoneline?

I did not provide any account number to Freephoneline when I submitted the request on Freephoneline.ca's website to port my Bell number over. In fact, I don't know what my Bell account # is. I did not enter any invoice. I don't believe that the Freephoneline.ca website prompted for a Bell account # or invoice. Nevertheless, the port completed.

How does "Bell verify they are proceeding a request from the number's real owner"? They did not contact me.

If someone tries to port a number away from Freephoneline, how does Freephoneline verify that the request came from the number's real owner?
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby j8van » 01/19/2015

curt wrote:j8van:

Are you referring to the scenario where one is porting from Bell to Freephoneline?

I did not provide any account number to Freephoneline when I submitted the request on Freephoneline.ca's website to port my Bell number over. In fact, I don't know what my Bell account # is. I did not enter any invoice. I don't believe that the Freephoneline.ca website prompted for a Bell account # or invoice. Nevertheless, the port completed.

How does "Bell verify they are proceeding a request from the number's real owner"? They did not contact me.

If someone tries to port a number away from Freephoneline, how does Freephoneline verify that the request came from the number's real owner?

Yes, I'm referring to that scenario, my case was back to Oct 2013, my porting had been rejected until I provided my invoice through Freephoneline support ticket and after that the porting resumed to proceed again.
My personal guess is, Bell has approved your number out-porting on Freephoneline's first attempt.
Did you ever contact Bell regarding terminating your services and porting out your number?

If you try to port a number away from Freephoneline, you need to submit a support ticket (by your registered email account) to request your Freephoneline account # and pass it to your proposed service provider, without your Freephoneline account # you are not able to port your Freephoneline number away.
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby curt » 01/20/2015

j8van wrote:Yes, I'm referring to that scenario, my case was back to Oct 2013, my porting had been rejected until I provided my invoice through Freephoneline support ticket and after that the porting resumed to proceed again.


Which invoice are you referring to? Are you saying that I would need to provide a copy of my Bell invoice to Freephoneline, before Freephoneline will try to port the number away from Bell to Freephoneline? Freephoneline never asked for a copy of my Bell invoice. Nevertheless, we have now ported two numbers from Bell to Freephoneline. Are you saying that Freephoneline slipped up and did not follow procedure with my case?

j8van wrote:My personal guess is, Bell has approved your number out-porting on Freephoneline's first attempt.
Did you ever contact Bell regarding terminating your services and porting out your number?


No, I've never contacted Bell regarding terminating my services or anything else. Why did they approve of the ports if I never contacted them or if they never contacted me? Are you saying that Bell slipped up and did not follow procedure with my case?

j8van wrote:If you try to port a number away from Freephoneline, you need to submit a support ticket (by your registered email account) to request your Freephoneline account # and pass it to your proposed service provider, without your Freephoneline account # you are not able to port your Freephoneline number away.


If I didn't provide any account numbers to Freephoneline when I ported a number from Bell to Freephoneline, it would seem that it is possible for somebody to port a number away from Freephoneline to another telco without providing an account number. Hasn't there been cases of this happening?

What is disconcerting is that I've e-mailed Fongo twice at two different Fongo e-mail addresses, asking these questions and they have not replied.
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Re: Porting Ident-A-Call Number

Postby j8van » 01/20/2015

I am saying what I have experienced during my number port-in to and port-out from Freephoneline, with no extending to other conclusions.

In the porting process, I don't think the port-in telco can do much other than providing as much customer's information as it can, while the port-out telco would have more controls on how strict the process will go through, e.g. how intensive or accurate their verifying customer's information.

Being detailed (strict) and being efficient are usually contradictive, when you are more preferring "everything needs to be 100% secured before to go", many other people are not - they prefer "please have it done right away", that's why a number porting used to take a couple weeks but now becomes almost "instant", the majority of customers' demand decides the trend.

But this doesn't mean the instant number porting process would be less secured, more sources are now put to the post-service period, like bridonca has said, if one feels unsecured or found his number got stolen, he can report the issue, steps will be taken to fix the problem by the relavent service party.
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