[qi:027] Given the SunRocket debacle, many folks have emailed and asked us, how do we save our phone numbers. I called around and asked some of my sources about the easiest way to save your phone number. It is a fairly easy process, though you need to hurry.
- Go to the nearest wireless store.
- Sign-up for the service, and ask them to switch the number to their mobile service. Reason you want to do this is because mobile carriers are most efficient when it comes to number portability.
- You have 30 days to cancel the service. Make sure you switch your number to another voice service before those 30 days elapse.
- Cancel Wireless Service.
The trick would be to do it soon – like today. There is a good chance, people who actually own the numbers SunRocket was giving out to customers are going to freeze them, because they want to recoup their monies.
The two companies which own the phone numbers are Global Crossing and Level 3 Communications. I have emailed them, to find out their policies around this issue.
Why you need to do this will be explained in my longer post on why SunRocket failed, and the inside story.
or http://www.phonenumberbank.com
Brilliant plan!
this will indeed work if you plan on porting to a RBOC/Baby Bell, but beware – not all non-RBOC/CLEC phone carriers can/will port numbers from Wireless carriers (pretty sure Time Warner and ComCast don’t.)
Otherwise, get your order in to your preferred new carrier ASAP and wait out the inevitable backlog for porting…
As of 10:15 EST, my Sunrocket connection is still working too. What gives?
I talked to T-Mobile, my current cell provider and set up a third line on my current two-line family plan and started the port of my home number to the third line. When I gave them my home number, they told me that Global Crossing has the number and that it would take 2-24 hours to get the number to T-Mobile. I will check tomorrow to see if that is accomplished.
Also, I took a look at their T-Mobile@home offering and it looks very interesting. here is an independent review of the new service as of 6/27/07:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/06/27/hands-on-with-t-mobile-hotspot-home/
Make sure to transfer the number before canceling the wireless service. Also, those who have VoIP service from SunRocket, Lingo, Packet8 like services should beware – this will likely happen to you too. read more at http://techuntangled.com/5-reasons-why-voip-providers-will-go-bust
It is my understanding that LNP assures a subscriber can port the service number to another carrier under certain conditions like geographical sameness etc. Your post and a subsequent comment seem to suggest that L3, GC, TW and CC may not observe that ruling. Am I right in that interpretation. If so, that is much bigger story than SR closing down.
Om, I hope you take on the brief on behalf of consumers in advising them what kind of rights they need to assert as they take on a new carrier, like whether the carrier will abide by LNP.
0545 P, San Diego, and my SR service is still up and well.
Sunrocket victim here….. NO service since Monday. Everyone says if is line dead, no transfer. Also, talked to FCC, FTC, and Viginia SCC – there are NO consumer protections or rights with VOIP problems as there are with other telephone services.
While I appreciate the need for a real resolution to the problem, what you are suggesting is just as crappy as what SR did to their customers. You basically just told everyone to screw the wireless companies by wasting their time, money and equipment when you know you aren’t going to stay with the service. That’s pretty sleazy.
Aswath –
it is true that wireline carriers are required to port between themselves (as long as factors such as geographic sameness are met), there are a couple of issues that could cause problems with the strategy Om outlined above:
SunRocket appears to not be location dependent (like Vonage and other independent VoIP providers) and customers may have non-local numbers (out of Rate Center) that would not be portable to a more traditional location-based provider.
All the FCC info I could find regarding porting between wireline and wireless providers was heavily peppered with “may” and “in some cases” and only addressed porting from wireline TO wireless, not the reverse. I understand this to mean that while porting between wireline and wireless and back is possible, it may not be in practice with all carriers yet.
VoIP providers are still not required to follow all of the wireline regulations (see also: SunRocket up and leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in the lurch with no prior notice). most markets with the cable companies are considered VoIP carriers rather than traditional wireline carriers, even though they voluntarily follow the bulk of the wireline regulations.
I do hope that some clarity comes soon from SunRocket or Global Crossing on where these numbers are going and how. I feel bad for all these folks stuck in the middle of this mess.
by Isaac-Lew in a Slashdot comment:
(Note: I left after a year in October 2006, after things really started going downhill).
Basically, there’s not one bigreason SunRocket went under, but rather a few smaller reasons that added up. The main one being that there was too much focus on bringing in management from the outside (mostly from AOL) instead of promoting from within. Also, employee retention was a big problem. When you start seeing early employees of the company quitting or getting fired, it’s very demoralizing to those still there.
I ended up leaving after I was involuntarily transferred to another department (which was supposed to be temporary, but my requests to go back to my previous department were ignored), I had a director-level non-techie jerk that had been hired from outside SunRocket placed as my immediate supervisor, and they decided to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on network monitoring software when we in the process of doing the same thing with Nagios [nagios.org] and/or OpenNMS [opennms.org] & saved big money.
To all of the former customers of SunRocket, as well as anyone considering hiring a former SunRocket employee: just about all of the non-management folks (especially the support personnel based in the US, & the technical groups) were the most competent group of people I have ever worked with, and the majority of them did care about providing the best VOIP service possible.
I have Sunrocket and my service (in Ohio) went out on Monday. however, I have 2 other friends who use Sunrocket in Florida and their phones are working fine. Impossible to reach anyone at Sunrocket – only number gives message: “Thanks for calling Sunrocket, the no gotcha phone company. We are not taking customer service or sales calls. Goodbye.” Gotcha!!!
I just got my number ported by Nuvio and setting up my acct was a super easy. I really like SunRocket, but Nuvio is right up there, maybe if better at customer service. You may see if they can help you.
http://direct.nuvio.com/sunrocket/
Om:
Are you sure that the above move from SR->Mobile->Landline will work for sure? If this would work, any reason why a direct port from SR->Landline (like SBC) will not work. I spoke to SBC/ATT and Comcast and both of them said they couldn’t port my number as they had some rate center issues? Any insights will be helpful.
Thanks
Venkatesh
Venkatesh,
As far as I know, porting from SR to ATT is not working, as I also called for that option… but they replied no… then I have gone ahead and signed up for PNB as mentioned here… Lets see..
http://nkishore.com/2007/07/18/tips-tricks-how-to-port-your-sunrocket-phone-number/
Looks like they have no linking for number porting from SR to landline,…. My friend got transfered his from SR to Mobile and its fine…
SunRocket created total confusion !!
Kish:
I will take a look at your pointers. Funny service providers have been charging religiously towards number portability every month and when time comes to port, they talk about ‘rate centers’ :-).
Venkatesh
I was just charged my annual renewal fee in June. What kick in the pants. I just transferred to VOIP.COM for a similar annual plan. Hope they don’t victimize me the same way. Why doesn’t someone buy SR and it’s AWESOME customer base?
I just signed up with Verizon VoiceWing. They think they can port my number over and said they will give priority to SunRocket folks. In the meantime, since SR voicemail is toast, I forwarded my SR lines to an account created on grandcentral.com. If I don’t answer on one of the lines it rings to, grandcentral takes the message correctly, and notifies me via email. I tried forwarding directly to my home phone and mobile – neither of these worked; I think it still tries to activate SR voicemail.
ps: I’m in San Diego, and I can still send and receive calls, and the SR website seems to do everything but voicemail. The gizmo’s power and VOIP lights are green, but the WAN light is orange and the RUN light is blinking red. I did power cycle it once before I knew what was going on; I’d be too afraid to do that again. Hopefully I can hobble along through the port process.
I’m set up with Packet8. Got a great deal with VOIC.com where I got my cell phones and highspeed internet from and am quite pleased. Though I’m still really pissed at SR! This stuff should not be allowed to happen!
~Mark
Another option is to port your number to Phone Number Bank (www.phonenumberbank.com), an offering of RNK Communications. They’re currently offering a free 60-day trial to port your number and forward calls coming into that number to your phone of choice. A great way to keep your number and try out the service for free!
You wrote: Why you need to do this will be explained in my longer post on why SunRocket failed, and the inside story.
So, where is the longer, inside story on why SunRocket failed? We are still waiting for that post.
Om,
I did port to verizonwireless (a number that had originated with Qwest, then moved to vonage, then sunrocket) Then I emailed voicestick and they said that “There are no restrictions on our side, Level 3 won’t allow the transfer”. I called Verizonwireless and they said, “no problem on our side”. So who the heck is Level 3 and what do they have to do with this? I thought sunrocket was connected to Global Crossing? And sunrocket is irrelevant now anyway since I moved on to Verizonwireless!
Anyone have answers?
Charge back Sunrocket at your bank and get your money back! Banks allow at least 30 days (maybe 60 days)to charge back a business that fails to deliver promised service as Sunrocket certainly did that to new members. We members that are over 60 days are just screwed! I’ve been looking to join a class action lawsuit, but so far all I’ve found is suggestions and wanna be’s, but no real lawsuit.
VOIP.COM says they do not port numbers from wireless services. So, if you change your number to a wireless service and sign up with them, you’ve lost your phone number. By the way, VOIP.COM is by far the worst provider I’ve dealt with. I signed up with them after comparing service on 07/20/2007. They didn’t mail equipment until 07/30/2007. I opened my first of many support tickets on 07/24/2007. So fair 10 tickets with no response to any of my questions. They have no telephone support. I requested to keep my Sunrocket number which is “pending”. So, I can’t really cancel with them until that transfer takes place. I made a big mistake signing up with them. Please don’t do the same. Anyway, I’m afraid I may have lost my phone number. I’m not a happy guy.
I have been a Vonage customer for three years. I have found their customer service to be first rate and their service has been excellent. I’m surprised more folks have not switched to Vonage.
A happy customer.
Ed