🔄 Number porting: switch providers without losing your number

Number porting lets you switch providers without losing your number: your company keeps the numbers your customers already know while improving service or cost. It is not available in every country or for every type of number, so it pays to know where it applies before you plan.

Where TelHarbor can port numbers

• United States numbers, local and toll-free: yes, with a one-time charge per number.
• Costa Rica landline numbers: they cannot be ported to IP Telephony; new numbers are assigned.
• Other countries: reviewed case by case before quoting.

How the process works

• The new provider confirms your numbers are portable.
• You provide the documentation and a signed authorization.
• The port date is coordinated to minimize any interruption.
• The number goes live on the new service, with your IP Telephony or UCaaS plan.

What can and cannot be ported

Where porting exists, the general rule is that the number is yours, not the provider's. Even so, a few details are worth checking before you promise your team a date:

• Active numbers in good standing: port without trouble.
• Full DID ranges: if you hold a block of numbers, the whole block usually ports, not individual numbers out of it.
• Already-cancelled numbers: once released, a number goes back to the provider and is usually lost. Never cancel before porting.
• Numbers with debt or in dispute: rejected until the situation is settled with the current provider.

How not to lose service on cut-over day

Every company has the same reasonable fear: having no phones the day of the switch. A simple sequence avoids it:

1. Stand up the new service first with temporary numbers and test it properly: inbound, outbound, menus, queues and recording.
2. Forward traffic from the current number to the new service, if your provider allows it, so your team is already working there before the port.
3. Port during a low-traffic window.
4. Remove the forward and the ported number lands directly.

Done that way, the real interruption is measured in minutes and happens when almost nobody is calling.

Documents usually required

• A copy of a recent invoice from the current provider.
• The company's registration document or tax ID.
• ID of the legal representative and a signed letter of authorization.
• The exact list of numbers to be ported.

The detail that causes most delays: account-holder data must match exactly what the current provider has on file, down to how the company name is spelled. A minor difference is enough for a rejection.

Common mistakes

• Cancelling the old service before porting. The expensive, irreversible one.
• Porting before testing the new service with real traffic.
• Forgetting secondary numbers: the fax line, the branch number, the one on an old sign.
• Not telling the team: people should know calls arrive somewhere else that day.
• Not updating where the number appears: website, Google listing, email signatures, invoices and printed material.