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So I followed the local advice and did not cancel my service with AT&T. I filled out the porting paper work provided by VOIPO and all seemed well. Today the porting took affect along with my DSL being cancelled. Something I did not want. Now AT&T is trying to force me to a more expensive U-Verse and refuses to restore my DSL. I have no phone, no internet. There has got to be a better process or information to port a number.
I've never tried to subscribe to DSL, since I never want an outdated land line. Time marches on and Dry DSL is more common now.
I've never been a fan of the newer AT&T. Hope someone here has good advice.
ALTERNATIVELY: Plenty of people at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip might be able to tell you what agencies you could complain to.
Unfortunately, many telcos require local service in order to get DSL. I'll also comment that in many parts of the country, DSL is all that is available. I do agree that the porting instructions should warn DSL subscribers to check with their provider to make sure that they will continue to have service. Typically "dry" DSL costs more.
Just to follow up my recent call, AT&T put all the blame on VOIPO. They claim VOIPO took the DSL rights with the re-porting of my number. After all my pleading, they still refuse to restore my DSL and said it would be a couple of weeks befoore they can have U-Verse installed.
I would hope VOIPO learns from these posts and caution their future customers of our expierences.
I do plan to file a complaint with the Public Service Commission about AT&T. But that rarely does any good.
*Yikes* I am sorry that this happened to you :(
I do now know who gave you the information about keeping your AT&T with DSL and porting that number over. I am assuming you told whomever you spoke with (the folks who gave you the advice), that you told them you had DSL on the line. And if they told you to port that number over, it in any situation is bad advice- and was sadly mistaken. But for now that's water under the bridge though, but I still feel your pain.
It does not matter which company you have DSL with, if that DSL line and the phone number you are porting over, are one in the same, the answer is always the same. Do not request a port on that number unless you want to likewise lose your DSL service. That's precisely what would have happened no matter if it were AT&T or some other DSL providing company.
Now, having said that, one can obtain what's called dryloop DSL. In simplest terms, this is DSL service without a corresponding voice number to go along with it. It is slightly more costly than a regular DSL line with voice as there is no bundling.
To bring this closer to home for me, my dad purchased Verizon Home Connect with porting the home phone number, which also included the DSL. I tried to tell my dad to not do it. He was like the phone service is only $19.95 a month and that's cheaper than what we pay now. Needless to say, the home number was ported, and the DSL was turned off so my parents lost Internet. My mom was like "GRRRRRRRRRRRRR", and my dad was like "Oops, my bad."
So I told them about "dryloop DSL" and my mom ordered that up. The downside was it took about 2 weeks to get the DSL back on again.
AT&T tech confirmed dry DSL is available. But AT&T refuses to restore DSL. To make me dislike AT&T more, I find out U-Verse is DSL. But a fifferent modem is required. And they insist on their own modem/router combo.
As I digress. Hopefully VOIPO provides additional caution to their DSL customers who want to port their number.
On a similar note. My buddy had an AT&T home phone, office phone and DSL. He called AT&T to cancel his office line but keep his home line and DSL. Of course when his office line went dead so did his DSL. It took him over a week of phone calls to get his DSL turned back on AND they required him to purchase a new modem.
I doesn't sound like there is any coordination between the AT&T phone and DSL services.
I want to start out by saying I am not bashing any person or any service, just trying to give good solid recommendations for anyone in the future.
If you plan on getting VOIP service it is highly recommended to obtain internet services no slower than cable speeds. This is actually misleading as Cable speeds are ranging over 100 plus MB downloads. As most internet providers are boasting "fast download speeds" the Upload speeds are what you need to be cautious of. The average user will not use upload beyond the normal page request (searching for or entering a URL in the address bar to goto a website) so this will not hinder them. But when you chose a service like DSL with slower upload speeds and try to run voip (Which requires a decent amount of upload and download bandwidth if used often) over it, it will slow down your surfing ability and at times give poor quality sound when making phone calls.
if you chose a service such as a T1 (mostly businesses) this is only 1.5MB up and 1.5MB down as far as bandwidth speeds but it is true dedicated bandwidth and not shared such as DSL and Cable so it appears as fast or faster (except on file downloads). but it is more than capable of support multiple voip lines as well as multiple computer with normal internet traffic.
A note on the DSL service. If you have exsiting DSL service and you chose to port your number, that service will get cancled because it is tied to the phone line(the number you are porting out. in my opinion it is never good to get your main number on the same line as you get dsl for multiple reasons including that one alone.
Or... just be smart and chose a faster service like cable internet or a more stable service such as T1.
My Thoughts,
Fentontech!
If you want to port any number you have to make sure the number your porting is NOT the billing number for the other services, unless you want them turned off. when you port a number and it doesn't matter what company it is, all services tired to that number will be cut off. If you had a DSL line on that number and had a second number, you can port the second number without effecting the main number, which should be the number your billing is tied to. Like if you had a cell family plan you can port the other numbers that isn't the billing number without cancelling the others.
That makes a lot of sense actually but surely there must be a way to switch billing numbers, and then be able to port it.Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyman
I can tell you how the telecom world works, as I have many years working for CLEC's and dealing with portings of both residential and businesses ranging in size from 1 line to 1000+ lines. Most companies use shared circuits, meaning your phone line and DSL run on the same copper loop to your house. If your DSL was not stand alone and was a shared circuit than your DSL number WAS your home number as well, and porting out the home number technically would wipe out the DSL circuit as well (means someone over looked the port out). If you have a stand alone DSL your DSL line has a number unto itself (you usually see the number next to the DSL billable on the bill).
VoIPo isnt at fault AT&T failed to check what was going on with your services before porting out. What you need is called stand alone DSL circuit. AT&T will know what that means, and if you mention there oversight this should get fixed fairly fast if it hasnt already.
@OregonVoIP,
As general description, you are absolutely correct. However, if somebody has typical residential DSL account (that is, phone + DSL), switching phone to VOIP easily becomes a mess (especially, if you are doing it for the first time - as most people do). And having general knowledge hardly helps.
You can't switch to dry-loop DSL while you retain your phone number - your phone company just won't do it. And you can't switch your phone number to VSP, since there is "additional service" (namely, DSL) associated with it.
I did such switch twice - and in both cases I ended switching my Internet service to cable company.