Number Porting and Separation of DSL and Previous Phone Serv

[shah123]

I got my Ooma Hub and Scout and was able to hook it up no problems. I am really happy with the sound quality as well, it is better than my ground line. Since I intend to keep my existing number and ask OOma to port it over, I have been assigned a temp number.

Now that I go to order Number Porting Add-on and since I have DSL with phone service currently, it asks me to call my phone company and tell them to separate my DSL and Phone service and change the DSL to dry-loop before placing the order.

I called my phone provider and at first they were confused and then finally after transferring my call to some other department, they agreed to do it. Today a person from the phone company showed up and he told me that he won't be able to leave the phone line on and have dry-loop DSL. He said that he could however physically disconnect the phone line and change the DSL to dry-loop. That way the account will still be active and I won't lose my number during the porting process.

Since I have another phone line from Ooma with temp number that I could use, I accepted his offer and asked him to disconnect the phone line and change the DSL to dryloop.

It finally seems to be working out well so far, but the reason I am mentioning this is that I am sure many other customers are going to have this problem (my phone carrier is one of the famous ones). The notion of separating phone line from DSL and changing DSL to dry-loop while the phone line is still active is totally new to the phone carriers and they are not able to understand why someone would want that, and apparently it is not possible either.

I think Ooma needs to do a better job in educating the customers as to what they really need to do. I think asking them to call and "separate" the phone line from DSL with the previous phone company is misleading. They have to explain clearly that the phone line (not the phone number account) will have to be disconnected in the process and hence there will be times when they won't have dial-tone on their previous phone number and they will have to live with the temp number for a while until they get the number ported.

[rocketman1622]

I don't know a whole lot about this at all but I do know you must keep your phone number active until your number gets ported. It sounds like your old phone number is now the line you use for your dry loop (internet). Once your phone number gets ported to Ooma, won't you lose internet service because that is the number you have for your internet line? Shouldn't you receive a totally different phone number for your internet?

[shah123]

You are right. When I called the phone provider they have supposedly move my DSL service to a new account with fictitious phone number. This way the phone line account with my previous number is ready to be closed as soon as Ooma takes over the phone number.