I opened the port Monday night. Tuesday 12/24 was not supposed to be a full holiday; it certainly wasn't a holiday at T-Mobile. And the port very much appears to have completed Tuesday morning, it's just that the folks at Tello have not turned on the service.
I believe with Sprint, a temporary number assignment is internally required to initiate a port request. Number porting itself is implemented very much like call forwarding within the switch, and it mostly involves re-routing of incoming calls and spoofing of the outgoing caller ID. What Tello seems to be doing is simultaneously suspending all service on the temporary number assigned until they verify the port is complete and un-suspend the line. They probably could leave it active instead, but just don't want to, in order to avoid confusions in their billing system. But if there is going to be a long service outage like this, that really isn't fair!
Indeed, my phone MEID reports as activated on the Sprint network, and the ported number reports as residing with Sprint, all as of Tuesday morning. Like I said, the service is not active simply because Tello has not pushed the button. Calling them did not help. "The phone number you have dialed is temporarily not in service." Outgoing text messages from the phone are auto-responded with, "You are not allowed to send text messages." Outgoing calls receive a recorded voice message, "You are not authorized to make this call." I have tried re-programming the phone, but still there is no service, not even cellular data. It's now Thursday morning 12/26. This just totally sucks!
If you have a Twitter account or know someone who does, you can likely get a response via Tweeting your problem to Tello. I, and others, have sometimes had quick success with cell phone problems by contacting the cellphone service providers via Twitter. Tello seems to be active on Twitter.
cparke writes: "I believe with Sprint, a temporary number assignment is internally required to initiate a port request. Number porting itself is implemented very much like call forwarding within the switch, and it mostly involves re-routing of incoming calls and spoofing of the outgoing caller ID. What Tello seems to be doing is simultaneously suspending all service on the temporary number assigned until they verify the port is complete and un-suspend the line. They probably could leave it active instead, but just don't want to, in order to avoid confusions in their billing system. But if there is going to be a long service outage like this, that really isn't fair! "
That's interesting. I'm only familiar with how it appears to function, rather than how it works behind the curtain!
In my experiences, I still think it's accurate to say that most providers do not allow access to a temporary number. Although this may be for billing confusion, it may also be to minimize customer confusion and additional load on Support, who have to deal with customers who don't understand the temporary number process & fear that their number has been lost , don't understand the necessity of provisioning the phone a second time, etc.
For most users, the result is the same whether access to a temporary number is available or not-- the phone (calls and text) is not fully functional when the number is suddenly different-- and if the system is working as intended, the time period before restoration of the real ported number follows almost immediately.
I'm sorry to hear that this isn't working in your case, and hope for a fast resolution!
Just did that, but they're smart and it seems they set tweet replies that they receive to be all private. So nobody else is going to see the embarrassment so they have incentive to finish the job.
I called them on Tuesday. The reps just go away for 3 minutes and come back with a fairly meaningless response that they spoke with porting department and it will take more time. Why would calling again today be any different?
That's true, once the port completes, they need to realize that their phone will stop working until they reprogram it with the new ported in number. If not documented and disclosed in advance, it certainly could cause many unnecessary support calls!
Yes, the M.O. of some companies responding on Twitter to any tweets that might contribute to a negative image of the company and cling to the Twitterverse web are often quickly replied to via private messaging in order to take the Tweets out of public view and to avoid any exposure of the person's private info, or so they would probably state as the reason. But as long as one gets the desired result, private messaging is fine with me, although I once had to go back to a public tweet when the private route failed the first time, which worked the second time in finally having the problem fixed.
If you feel Tello customer support is unable to resolve your issue, you can file a complaint with BBB or FCC. Since T-Mobile released the number, I suggest only naming Tello in your complaint.
I've seen this happen before, where the number moves to the underlying carrier but for whatever reason the automated process that assigns the number to the MVNO fails. If you can reach the appropriate department, this can be resolved manually.
The issue is still not resolved and still no service as of tonight Thurs. 12/26. We called Tello in the evening, and they do seem to be saying they are having a problem with Sprint regarding completing this number port. I agree this has to be resolved manually ASAP, tomorrow may be time for the FCC complaint.
Small update - This morning, I was able to speak with the person who runs the porting department at Tello.
The issue with my port is an unusual one, as it originates with the fact the number was on RingPlus (a former Sprint MVNO) when they shutdown in 2017. In particular, the way that all RingPlus numbers were transferred to Ting (another Sprint MVNO) is what complicates the matter. From what I recall, they worked with Sprint to implement some special procedure within Sprint's network system to reassign the numbers immediately from one Sprint MVNO to another.
Apparently, when the number now ported back in to Sprint, there is some residual effect still there, and while the number is indeed now on the Sprint network, it is nevertheless inaccessible to Tello's MVNO controls. Frankly, I get the impression that some kind of MVNO override is what they did back them, and the number is probably force-assigned to Ting MVNO until the directive is removed.
Whatever the case, now that they know the issue (which they needed my help in describing the number's history to determine), it can be corrected, but now it's looking like several more days until resolved (i.e. probably not until Tuesday). That's a week of no service, which is horrible, but maybe they will provide some kind of compensation for that when this is over. I have another number in the same situation that I plan to port in to Tello a few months from now, I'm also wondering now if the same issue will arise and if there might be some way to avoid the confusion and delay when that happens...
@cparke Thanks for this update and glad to hear Tello now understands the problem, though obviously this service disruption is unacceptable.
Regarding a future port-in, the device swap function in My Tello portal gives option to port in a number. If you have a spare MEID, you can activate service on a new number, then port in after activation when swapping to desired MEID. I think (pretty sure) if you do this, you will at least have active service on a "temporary" number while the port is in progress.
ETA:
You can also try reaching out to @LiterallyUnlimited (Ting employee) either here or on reddit to see if he can assist "pushing" the number to Tello, if the theory that the number was wrongly assigned to Ting is correct.
Thanks for the detailed report, cparke! That is most interesting.
FWIW, like a lot of people on this forum, I also had a couple of numbers that moved from Ring Plus > Ting > elsewhere. (And both are currently on Tello.)
I haven't had difficulties moving them, so apparently the issue isn't universal just because of that path.
(Edit to add: a great suggestion from st3fx about reaching out to LIterallyUnlimited if needed. He seems to like a challenge, and has pretty clearly stated that Ting is willing to assist former Ting customers.)
Interesting process, I did not realize that ... however, because the number has already been released on the old carrier even though port is not completed as far as Tello is concerned, it probably won't help. The phone seems to program to the ported-in number with service in suspended status; the temporary number likely would have been gone at this stage. For now, I put in a FreedomPop AT&T SIM card into the phone, that at least restores cellular data and provides a free virtual number.
At this point, I think probably best to let Tello port-in department make the calls to Sprint, Ting, whoever they need to make, which they clearly have not been making. Though he might be able to confirm if the phone MEID is ghosted on their MVNO console and confirm the theory.
The matter might be further complicated by the fact this was one of those lines that ported out RingPlus, then re-ported back in. I recall RingPlus didn't like that because it made the second port-in more complicated for some reason and they started charging an extra $20 to do it. Maybe that is part of the issue, idk.
@cparke You make a good point and could be right. Let me clarify what I had in mind.
Prerequisites: Have two phones eligible for activation on Tello.
Activate one phone as a new line with a "temporary" number.
Swap to other device via My Tello and provide number port-in details.
(I believe) The device swap will not occur until the number has ported to Tello.
(I believe) Your "temporary" number should remain active on the initial phone MEID until the number is transferred to Tello.
(I believe) If the number being ported in is released by the losing carrier to Sprint, but not assigned to Tello, this should not affect your "temporary" number.
Once the port is completed successfully, the number should be active on the second phone MEID, and the "temporary" number and initial phone MEID are no longer active.
cparke, just to be clear about my earlier statement regarding numbers with similar paths: I think the explanation you're getting from Tello Tech is likely correct about the MVNO override. If anyone has seen this before & figured out the issue, it's likely to be Tello, Twigby, or Ting. (All seem to have competent tech departments, are likely to have seen multiple users over time with a similar issue, and are small enough that similar instances might catch someone's attention.)
I only intended to reduce the fear that it would happen again with every number with a similar porting history. The 'stuck' MVNO override doesn't seem to happen all the time.
st3fx, your suggested workaround would be a big win if it works. There are a few things I wonder about, though.
Is it possible to port from Tello to Tello? (I don't think most providers will do this.)
In the mad scramble in the latter days of RingPlus, I saw a number of horror stories resulting from people initiating multiple ports of the same number without waiting for completion of the first port. The tech warning seemed to be that if the multiple stacked requests were handled (behind the scenes) in the wrong order, the resulting knots could be very difficult or impossible to untangle.
I do like the idea of activating a temporary number to get through the waiting period. A second device, if available, could certainly be set up on a different Tello line with a temp number. I would hope that Tello would be willing to adjust or remove the charge from one or the other of the 2 lines while they overlap.
If no spare eligible phone is available, the current phone is multi-carrier (since it's moving from T-Mobile.) Could the same phone be used with a temporary SIM /number from a GSM provider? (I believe this works, but only based on second-hand reports.)
A temporary number would at least provide outgoing communicaton-- but most of your contacts wouldn't know how to reach you anyway. (Unless you happen to use Google Voice as your outward-facing number, in which case it's easy.)
An intra-Sprint port from one Sprint MVNO to another Sprint MVNO has always been possible. But, you really mean swap numbers between accounts at the same MVNO? I didn't ask that, it really depends on their policy, and its not a port itself. I did ask, however, if they allow a number to be ported in on an existing account, which they can do without the corresponding device swap.
That I thankfully did not do. I just let the Ting migration happen. The horror stories of days without service discouraged that as an opt-out route. Seems instead I am experiencing my own similar horror story anyway right now, years later.
I'm not convinced that Tello's port-swap procedure really would help. There were a lot of "I believe" annotations there. What I believe would happen is the temporary number would disappear once the ported number is released by the prior carrier and arrives onto the Sprint network. At that point, there would be suspended service on the device, the same as I'm experiencing here. So it wouldn't help at all.
The device swap itself is likely either a separate first or last step executed by Tello in the port process, but it would fail if the target device was in use on another Sprint line when attempted. I tend to think they'd do it first to avoid that problem, but I have never tried this yet to know.
Your last point is what I've done, so I can vouch that it definitely does work and is the best option if available. The phone is a multi-carrier iPhone, and the FreedomPop SIM runs on the AT&T network and provides a limited amount of free data (then pay per MB) together with a two-way, texting capable phone number accessible through a Messaging app. Without the Sprint SIM installed, the phone is blind to the Sprint network and does not respond to it.
There is a minor issue with using temporary numbers with iPhones, however. The iMessage app. isn't sure if the Apple ID account is being hijacked when the phone number on the device suddenly changes like this. Recipients are alerted that the messages may not be from you, and they are tagged with the Apple ID (email address) rather than the phone number. I suppose there is a way to fix this on the Apple ID, but that may be an overkill for just a few days on a temporary number.
He actually was helpful, replied with the following:
[code]I'm not sure what their issue is. I ran that number by our prevalidation system:
Service Provider TELLO LLC
Port CSA NYCWHI914
Port Direction A
That means it's an active wireless number with Tello, as far as everything I can see.[/code]
That kind blows this theory out the window, if he's correct. Still, that output looks like the port ticket info to me, not an actual identifier as to where this is where the phone number is located... which would mean that it indicates nothing.
@KentE This workaround/idea was not to help with the current issue, but in response to his concern about porting in an additional number to Tello in the future. You are correct, multiple port in requests are a terrible idea. Also, no it is not possible to port numbers between Tello accounts.
@cparke I understand your skepticism about the workaround. The reason why I'm more optimistic is because Tello would have started the billing period with a new activation/new number, whereas (I believe) the billing period for a new activation/number being ported in will not start until the port has completed. When your number port is completed, please advise if the billing period is effective the date of the port request or date of port completion.
While an outage on active service would be stronger grounds for an account credit, Tello has mentioned several times that they are planning to provide some form of compensation for the service outage once this is resolved, even though it's a non-billable period. I don't expect my billing will start until the port is completed.
On the Tello dashboard, this is the message I still receive:Order #xxxxxxx placed on 12/23/2019 | Status: Porting in
All missing text messages apparently were held in queue over the past few days, and they all got delivered at once upon line activation. Service start date on Tello billing is today, however, as expected.
Like I said, therefore, this service outage was very much like suspended service. Still waiting to hear what compensation Tello is planning to offer for this outage.