porting and providers

[andrea]

Hi there,

still haven't moved house, so I still have a few weeks to make up my mind as to what provider to use.

I have been through the list of providers available on this forum (thanks Matt) and noticed, to my surprise, that with Gradwell it is possible to port my phone number to the VoIP account. I wonder if someone knows of some other provider that would do that. For more info:
Gradwell dot com Limited

Blueface seem to do the same thing, but they are in the Republic of Ireland, so they might be of no use (and with Eirecom it takes 6-8 weeks)

On a more general note, it seems to me that only Sipgate, Voipfone and Gradwell allow you to choose a certain geographical number. Gradwell is the most expensive of the lot by a long margine, while Sipgate, not having any standing charges, is the cheapest (but it is not getting a good press). Voipfone is in the middle, but Matt seems to have grown out of it, after all he hasn't given it a terribly good rating. I am getting more confused by the minute.

One more point, if I also want to get an Italian (Rome - code 06) number (where I am from) where can I go? It seems that only Gradwell do it, but it costs an arm and a leg....

Enough for now.

Thanks in advance,

Andrea

[mattpark]

Andrea.

You bring up an important point for VoIP.

It is possible to port numbers from BT to a VoIP provider now, and also from most VoIP - VoIP providers too. However people should take not that at the moment you can port over numbers from NTL.

Technically any VoIP provider can port a number, but only a few advertise that they can (or will). Some may charge, some may not.

Now, regarding an Italian number. To be completely honest, I don’t know much about any foreign number providers. I’ll have to dig a little deeper for you on that. Basicly there will be a governing body that manages Italian numbers, and telephony providers got to them and reserve blocks of numbers for their use. I’ll turf up some info and get back to you on this…

Gradwell seem to be pitching themselves towards the top of the market, targeting primarily business users. (Hence all prices on their site being ex VAT).

VoIPhone have been quite good for me (the review in the reviews area was just a test while i was building the new forum). My only issue is that while they have a support phone number, if you ring it you'll find that your simply taken to a front desk why they take your problem and get an engineer to email you back.. which can take quite a while. Having said that they now also have a volunteer helpline number you can punch in which will take you to other users on their service.

Rather than advise you on which provider to choose, i would say this - you get what you pay for! As with everything in life. Use a free service, you'll get a free service. Dont expect any comeback when you have an issue or their network goes down! VoIP service providers are sprouting up every which way at the moment and the only way to find the sweet ones from the sour it to use each and everyone... which on your own you cant do - one of my main reasons for starting this site!


Matt

[andrea]

I have been doing some digging in the voipfone website and found out, in the forum section, that they do do some porting, but only for certain geographical areas. The information is not terribly up to date since is a good few months old (April), so with a bit of luck they will have expanded the service by now.
In case someone wants to know more, info available here:
http://www.voipfone.co.uk/Porting_Codes.xls
and more in general here:
Number Porting From BT

Andrea

PS

As Matt said, it seems that nobody is as yet able to port numbers from NTL/Telewest, but only BT.

PPS

I have had another look at the forum and they have another list of all the dialling codes they can port from, including Dundee (WOW!!).
Entire list here:
Transferring (porting) your telephone number to Voipfone
I am not sure what the difference is between this list and the one I mentioned earlier on, but there you go.....