Porting Vonage
Overview
I have found a lot of information scattered all over the Google Voice forum and the internet about how this is done. Some of it is long-winded and confusing. I have attempted to list the steps in a short and accurate fashion.
First, this is possible, but porting a phone number from Vonage directly to Google Voice is not possible. Vonage makes porting a number VERY difficult and this is likely the reason Google Voice doesn’t want to deal with Vonage. However, many people have had success by porting the Vonage number to a mobile phone first, and then porting it to Google Voice. IMPORTANT: Pick a major mobile carrier! See addendum for more info.
It can take somewhere between 6 and 10 days if there are no problems, Google charges $20 to port a number into Google Voice, and there’s no guarantee that the port from the pre-paid phone to Google voice will work. That said, it’s not equivalent to “none of them will work” or “it’s not likely that any of them will work.” I just mean there’s no way to ensure that the number is portable from the pre-paid phone to Google Voice. All you can do is reduce the chance of failure by picking a pre-paid phone from a major carrier. T-Mobile seems to be the most reliable.
Finally, understand what Google Voice is and what it isn’t. For example, Google voice is not a calling plan. You’ll need a working phone to use it. I have listed the costs I have paid with this technique but realize there may be early termination fees if your situation is different. In other words, if you port the number for a phone where you are in the middle of a 2 year contract, you will pay an early termination fee. See the Google Voice About video (below) and understand everything there is to know about Google Voice before you begin. View the “Number porting” video here: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html It may be best to view all the videos on this page, but at least view the “Number Porting” video.
Prerequisites
You must have:
- A Vonage phone
- A Google account with Google Wallet
- A good pleasant attitude and patience
Please understand:
- The fastest this can happen is 6 days. There are many ways you and unintentionally delay the process. Read this guide from top to bottom before you begin.
- You will need to purchase a pre-paid phone and buy minutes. Pick a major carrier and choose the cheapest phone and the cheapest plan. I purchased a $70 phone and added $10 of minutes/texts on the “pay-as-you-go” plan. Note: Some people have had success bringing an old cell phone to T-Mobile and buying a $6 sim card. That seems to work but that wasn’t an option for me because I didn’t have an old T-Mobile phone.
- You will need to give Google $20 to port your number via Google Wallet
- After the process is done you can sell the pre-paid phone and perhaps even your house phone that was working with the Vonage service on eBay to re-coup your expenses.
STEP BY STEP GUIDE
STEP 0 – Prep work
Obtain your Vonage account credentials. Vonage must have ALL your information before they will allow the port to go through. If you provide partial or incorrect information this will delay the process. You will need:
- Your Vonage Phone number (obviously)
- Your Vonage Account ID
- This is NOT your Vonage phone number! You can find this number by logging into your Vonage account page. It’s listed in small text in the upper right of your account page on Vonage’s website.
- Your Vonage pin number
- This is a four digit number you set up when you first configured your Vonage account.
- Your Vonage User Name.
- This is what you use to log into your Vonage account page.
It’s really crappy that Vonage makes you provide all of this information. Do yourself a favor and get this information before you start anything. Again, if partial or inaccurate information is provided, Vonage will delay the process!
See the addendum at the end of this post so you understand what can cause this process to fail!
Watch the “About Google Voice” video (link can be found in the Overview section, or here: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html)
STEP 1 – Buy a Pre-Paid mobile phone and port the Vonage number
Choose a major carrier: T-Mobile, AT&T, or Verizon. Have all your Vonage information ready. Many people have had success with T-Mobile but there are success and failure stories with every pre-paid carrier. When you buy the pre-paid phone, ask the sales agent to port your Vonage number. See “my experience” section below.
STEP 2 – Wait for the port to T-Mobile to be complete
This will take at least 5 days… maybe longer. Many people act too quickly and this delays the process. Your Vonage service must be fully deactivated. See the time-line below.
STEP 3 – Port to Google Voice
You must have Google Wallet set up within your Google account. Go to google.com/voice and activate the Google Voice service. Choose: “I want to port my number” and follow the process. Hopefully, you will be told your number is eligible to be ported and you will be asked to provide your T-Mobile credentials, including your T-Mobile account number. If you’re using a pre-paid phone, your T-Mobile account number is your 10 digit phone number. Complete the steps, pay your $20 via Google Wallet and wait about 24 hours.
STEP 4 – Configure Google Voice
After the port to Google Voice is complete, configure it to forward calls to an existing phone.
Enjoy not paying $28 a month to Vonage! Sell your pre-paid phone to recover some of your expenses.
My Experience
I walked into a T-Mobile retail store and said I would like to purchase a new pre-paid phone and port my Vonage number to it. The sales rep said that was possible and I would need to purchase the phone with a temporary number, activate the phone in store, and then the porting process could begin. She said the port may take up to 48 hours. So, I gave her my Vonage information and she wrote it on a note pad. I purchased and activated the phone with a temporary number. At that point the sales agent said I could leave while she took take care of the porting process. I chose to stay because I wanted to make sure everything whet smoothly because I knew Vonage could be very difficult about letting go of customers. She used the store phone to call the T-Mobile corporate office and she provided my Vonage information to someone in the porting department. Again, I was listening to this conversation in the store and I made sure every number and letter the sales rep provided to the porting agent was accurate. For example, one character of my Vonage password was the letter “O” and I made sure the agent knew this was a letter and not the number zero (sometimes people enter zero when they hear letter “O”). I was pleasant about the whole thing. After her call was done she wrote an 800 number and a reference ID on a piece of paper and said if I didn’t hear anything in 48 hours to call that 800 number.
I went home and jumped on T-Mobile’s website and provided my new T-Mobile account credentials so I can manage the phone’s features. This is where you can add minutes, etc. You hopefully won’t need to add any minutes. I mainly did this because site also shows the phone number attached to the T-Mobile phone. This phone number will change throughout the porting process and it’s a nice indicator that things are going smoothly.
The Google Voice porting process started off a little bumpy. At first, Google Voice said my number was not eligible for porting because my carrier wasn’t supported. This was a huge disappointment because I knew there was a chance that the port to Google Voice from a pre-paid plan could fail even if I did everything right. I decided to wait a few more hours and try again. When I did, my number was magically “available for porting”… I was so thrilled! The remainder of the information I was provided (T-Mobile billing address, etc.) was accepted right away and I got the “port in process” status to show. Again, I was feeling pretty good because I knew it would only take about 24 hours to finish this process. Unfortunately, I got an email the following morning saying there was a problem. The error message said I incorrectly entered my T-Mobile pin number. I followed the link back to the Google Voice site. There was form that allowed me to re-enter my T-Mobile PIN. Once again the status was: “port in progress.” Frankly, I don’t remember entering my PIN the first time but oh well.
The following day the entire process was complete and my phone number that originally was on Vonage ended up on Google Voice. Oh Yeah!
Timeline
Day 1, Purchased T-Mo phone, started Vonage transfer
| Vonage Phone | T-Mo Pre-Paid phone | |
| Places calls from: | Desired Number | T-Mobile Temporary Number |
| Receives calls from: | Desired Number | T-Mobile Temporary Number |
Note: T-Mo account page shows the temporary T-Mo number
Day 2
| Vonage Phone | T-Mo Pre-Paid phone | |
| Places calls from: | Desired Number | Desired Number |
| Receives calls from: | Desired Number | T-Mobile Temporary Number |
Note: T-Mo account page shows Vonage number
Day 3
| Vonage Phone | T-Mo Pre-Paid phone | |
| Places calls from: | Desired Number | Desired Number |
| Receives calls from: | n/a | Desired Number |
Day 5, Got an email from Vonage saying account was closed. Vonage phone contained no dial tone. Vonage account was completely shut down.
| Vonage Phone | T-Mo Pre-Paid phone | |
| Places calls from: | n/a | Desired Number |
| Receives calls from: | n/a | Desired Number |
Note: I started the Google Voice port
Day 6
Google Voice port stalled due to an incorrect T-Mo pin number I entered. I provided the right number and the port was “in progress” once again.
Day 7
T-Mo’s web site no longer allowed me to log in. Shortly after the process was DONE! Google Voice port completed successfully!
Addendum – Reasons for failure
There are currently several reasons why the port to Google voice may fail, but most likely one of the following:
- The number is not a mobile number. We can only port mobile numbers at this stage. We hope to extend this to non-mobile numbers in the future. Whether the number was previously a mobile number makes no difference in this case. If it’s not a mobile number now, we cannot port it.
- The number is mobile but not from a supported operator. We currently only support Alltel, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile & Verizon
- The number is from one of the supported operators, but not from a supported plan (corporate accounts, some prepaid plans and some MVNOs). We are working on adding details for MVNO support.
- The number is from an area we cannot support. Although we do cover, through our carrier operators, the majority of the population, there are area codes or subdivision of area codes we cannot support.
- The porting request falls during a maintenance window. The porting tool is currently unavailable for scheduled downtime from Saturday 9PM to Sunday 9AM PST
Keep in mind that some of the error codes are kind of vague. Google is working on surfacing more detailed response messages, so you will know what the reason is for the inability to port.
