Porting 08x number to VoIP

unnamed

Hi,
Is there any VoIP providers which allow porting in of mobile numbers (08x).
In the UK I'm currently using https://aa.net.uk/kb-telecoms-07.html (07 numbers are mobile in the UK), and it's working very well for me.
Thank.

babelfish1990

unnamed wrote: »

Hi,
Is there any VoIP providers which allow porting in of mobile numbers (08x).
In the UK I'm currently using https://aa.net.uk/kb-telecoms-07.html (07 numbers are mobile in the UK), and it's working very well for me.
Thank.

Not exactly porting - but eir-Mobile do allow you to use Wi-Fi calling on compatible handsets, which means you can use your (08x) phone abroad anywhere you have WiFi access, as if it was at home without international prefixes and without roaming charges. It also means you can access Irish numbers not usually accessible from UK, such as 1800 Freephone. Probably not so useful in UK at the moment, with EU-wide free roaming - but should be useful when roaming charges are re-introduced in UK after Brexit next year!

unnamed

Thanks babelfish1990,

Great idea, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for:

- I want to be able to forward numbers from my ported 08x numbers to a SIP Server and leave it route my call.
or
- Connect to the number from a soft phone, so I don't have to carry multiple phones around.

EdgeCase

While there's technically no reason why it can't be done, at present ComReg doesn't have any mechanism in place to allow you to do that. The 08X numbers can only be ported between mobile networks. They specifically allocate those numbers for mobile use only and there's various interconnect and termination charges involved.

All that's preventing it from happening is accounting and regulatory issues.

It's something that may be possible in the next few years though. In the meantime, the best you could do is forward incoming calls to a VoIP number. Although, that would require you to have a mobile plan in place, and you would be charged at whatever the rates are.

You can, however, port a landline number to anything you like (except mobile at present).

unnamed

Thank you, great response.
It looks like blueface used to do it (maybe they stopped for the reason you mentioned).
For those interested, I've pretty much done what you suggested, got a prepaid account, and forwarded the calls.  However, this didn't solve the SMS issue (although it technically possible to forward SMSs, no provider in Ireland supports it).  So, I used this program (https://wammu.eu/smsd/) and a raspberry pi to forward the SMSs to email.
Thank you again.

EdgeCase

Unfortunately, SMS forwarding isn't widely supported anywhere that I'm aware of. Ireland's not unusual in that regard.

Also, due to the massive growth of WhatsApp, iMessage and other "over the top” services, I have my doubts that you’ll see major developments of sms facilities beyond what they are now. There’s little future revenue possibilities for sms and mms is a total dead duck.

Eir had also implemented fixed line SMS back in the late 90s/early 2000s, but closed the service due to lack of uptake. It ended up only being used by very low revenue niches like alarm monitoring (sending maybe a couple of texts a year on average).

Technically speaking, it’s most definitely possible to implement it but it seems that nobody’s bothered.

There are **# codes that can specify that the mobile switching center (exchange) specifically forwards voice, sms, circuit switched data, fax and all sorts of things but, hardly any of them are implemented beyond voice.

IP based, push instant messaging is just vastly better than SMS and MMS. They’re built in an old SS7 signaling environment and very insecure and quite cumbersome, compared to what’s possible with IP.

I’d say you’ll see a move to VoLTE (VoIP technology) and IP based carrier messaging replacing SMS and MMS entirely. It’s cheaper, easier and might be able to claw back some of the market from WhatsApp and similar.