Mobile number portability

Cork

Mobile number portability - Has anybody switched?

How is it working out?

jesus_thats_gre

Vodafone fully rolled it out on the 11th of August after some live testing with customers for the previous two weeks. There has been some minor problems but these have mostly been ironed out.

Overall, there is very little different, except for slightly different call charges and the names of some services are different.

smemon

does anyone know how much it costs to switch networks??
and if it includes unlocking the fone?

jesus_thats_gre

You will have to get the handset unlocked through your current operator.


As for a charge, this varies depending on the operator. In Vodafone's case, there is no chage for porting on as a bill pay customer, however if you port on as a RTG customer, you must pay €12 for the sim card. You get €12 free credit however.


When porting onto Meteor, you must purchase as Meteor sim card firstly. I am not sure how much this costs however and the break down between Prepaid and Bill Pay.

I do not know about O2.

jesus_thats_gre

In order to port your number over to the Vodafone network you can call into any Vodafone Agent who will send your request to your current operator upon
- Displaying CLI (Caller Line Identity)
- Completion of a CAF (Customer Authorisation Form).


Before you port I have to make sure you are aware of the following :

Cost - There is a charge of €12 incl. VAT for your new Vodafone SIM card however you will receive €2 free credit upon successfully porting and another €10 when you register your details.

Interruption in service - It can take up to 2 hours for your request to be processed during which time you will be able to receive calls and send/receive text messages, however you will not be able to make calls. Upon inserting your new Vodafone SIM card a text message will be sent to you from Vodafone when you have successfully ported.

Remaining Credit - Any call credit remaining on your account will be lost once the port has been completed.

Deferred porting - If you wish to port immediately your request will need to be sent within porting hours otherwise your request will not be processed until the next day. Alternatively you can request to port on the day most suitable to you within the next 30 days.

Handset network locked - If you are keeping your old handset you will need to contact your current operator as this may be locked to that network.

rymus

how are the operators (in particular O2) with providing unlock codes for people that want to switch to vodafone?

My girlfriend is moving her pre-pay account to vodafone soon (to keep my bills down a bit) but I'm rather skeptical that O2 will actually give her the unlock code. A woman in the Vodafone shop in Galway said they should give the code without any hassle as Voda are providing unlock codes to their pre-pay customers that want to switch networks but whats the truth?

If I ring up O2 for the unlock code are they just going to fob me off or give me some long-winging tale about what I need to do to get the code and/or why they cant give it to me?

jesus_thats_gre

They should just give it to you.. Try to avoid telling them you are switching to Vodafone. Just ask them for the NAC code for the handset.

rymus

cheers.. I'll give that a go tomorrow...

Guess when they ask me why I want the code I'll just clam up and say something like "thats just none of your bloody business is it???"

crowbar

they won't ask you that, why would they care?

they will probably only give it to you once you have made a certain call spend. eircell certainly used to do this, i think it was £120 for a prepaid phone. basically it was to recover the subsidy for your phone - did you really think a handset cost just the ridiculously low amount that you paid for it? i paid £39 or so for my original eircell rtg on a nokia 3210 ... mobile phone handsets are cheap but they ain't that cheap.

they might be more accommodating if you tell them you want to switch from prepay to postpay, cause you might need a new sim for that too so you'd have to unlock the phone first to use the new sim.

cgarvey

Originally posted by crowbar
they won't ask you that, why would they care?

For the reason you state. They need to make their subsidy.

they might be more accommodating if you tell them you want to switch from prepay to postpay, cause you might need a new sim for that too so you'd have to unlock the phone first to use the new sim.

It certainly used to be the case that the phone was locked to the network, not the account/sim type. So if you had a prepaid sim, and upgraded to a post pay (on the same network), your phone would remain locked to that network (until you asked otherwise).

Does anyone know if the minimum contract duration/call spend still applies before you get the unlocking code?

If all else fails, you could search the boards for alternative means of unlocking.

.cg

parsi

I came across this on another mailing list - its supposed to unlock your phone for free and might be worth a try.

http://www.gsminside.com/unlocking/

skipn_easy

I don't know about unlocking with O2 or Vodafone but meteor were extremely obliging when I asked them to unlock my phone. They checked that I had spent a certain amount (think it was about 90 euro or so) and then called me and gave me the unlock code. Only after it was unlocked did they ask was I changing networks and if so why.

Winters

Originally posted by Wyvern
Only after it was unlocked did they ask was I changing networks and if so why.

I can understand there, and all operators, reasons for asking. Its purly market research.

If they can find out why customers are changing networks they can sue this information to then make there network better. Simple really.

Dun

Originally posted by jesus_thats_gre
As for a charge, this varies depending on the operator. In Vodafone's case [snip] if you port on as a RTG customer, you must pay €12 for the sim card. You get €12 free credit however.

I do not know about O2.

Jebus, I was quoted €29 to change from Vodafone to O2. Dunno if that included free credit though.

Winters

o2 have a good bit of info. on there site about changing to o2 from other operators. http://www1.o2.ie/about_o2/changing_to_o2.

also something interesting from o2

Calling Outside the O2 Network
Because you will no longer know by the phone prefix which network you are calling there may be confusion around the cost of a call.

A customer may have an 086 prefix but be on another network which means that offnet rates will apply. To give all of our customers clarity on this a recorded announcement will alert customers when an 086 number is not an O2 customer.

Only really remembered now the annoyance the differant prefixes will make on call costs. o2 will tell you first but i can see it getting annoying

flyz

I'm porting over to Vodafone tomorrow. I'm getting first months line rental free and €70 off a new phone.

kevinmcc

If I was you I'd stick with O2. There much better value. I get €5 free calls a month and 100 free text msgs a month all for just €15. They also have a all-ireland tariff.

flyz

Originally posted by kevinmcc
If I was you I'd stick with O2. There much better value. I get €5 free calls a month and 100 free text msgs a month all for just €15. They also have a all-ireland tariff.

Yeah but the other half is already with Vodafone so it's costing me a fortune to ring him. His is a business phone too.
So by porting to Vodafone I get 30 minutes free and 30 minutes free to a friend on vodafone and 100 free txt msgs too for €30.

so hopefully I'll be halving my current phone bill.

rymus

long story short, o2 gave over the unlock code but not before trying the old "the phone number you gave us doesnt match the IMEI in our database" line. Same thing they always used to do.