Porting complete--customer service appreciated

[jandy]

Completed the porting of my landline # over to VT. You can see my updated review on dslreports for info on how it went (http://www.dslreports.com/comment/2557/58962).

Overall, I'm very happy with the service, especially customer support. If you read reviews on dslreports of other VOIP providers, then I think that it becomes clear that VT is putting a lot of its resources into tech support (rather than marketing and goofy national TV ads), which I think is a great way to cultivate long-term customers. For "non-techy" customers (like me) switching from POTS, the success of VOIP hinges on how well and how quickly a company responds to its customers. ViaTalk is a smart company in that it recognizes this fact.

I do think, though, that it would be great to develop the knowledgebase and FAQ on the website over time. It is pretty "bare bones", although these forums (including the VT forum at dslreports) tend to make up for whatever the knowledgebase and FAQ lacks.

[junianby]

Glad they got your number ported. They are saying that I can't get mine done because my house is less then 5 years old????????????? Or service is not available in my area. The temp number they gave me is a local number.:confused:

[jandy]

That's weird. I can't see why having a newer house would cause a problem, especially if your temp # is local. Maybe a VT person here can clarify or follow up on that.

I wonder if the porting problem has more to do with your current POTS provider. Who's your local provider that you're porting from? Do you have a PIC freeze or any kind of contract?

[junianby]

I have verizon and it's just a standard pots line.

[jandy]

I'd definitely follow up and get a better explanation from VT tech support. I just ported from Verizon. One thing I do know--if you have FIOS, you have to make sure that the FIOS is billed to your credit card, not your phone bill. They can't switch you over unless FIOS is billed to your card because that would wipe out the internet service!

Good luck--I hope you can get it worked out! :rolleyes:

[junianby]

They are saying that my address is invalid. I can't figure that one out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gsquare]

Porting is a thorny issue. Personally, I successfully ported from Verizon POTS to CallVantage, and porting failed from there to VT. Although VT could give me a local number, it was located in a Central Office about 20 miles away and that was a problem. I have also assisted 4 VT customers in the porting exercise from POTS and 2 went and 2 failed. Although porting is required by regulation and we used to pay a monthly fee for several years for porting service, it appears that it can be rejected if the loosing provider has to go to any "unusual" activity to complete the port. Simply having service in a local area is not necessarily enough to be sure porting is going to happen. The port needs to be within the same Central Office to be sure the loosing component will comply. When helping others and after some spotty attempts, I finaly asked the VT sales person if they could look into their data bases and tell me if they currently had any customers with a certain exchange number ie (xxx) 123-xxxx. If they said Yes, I found that porting was going to go ok. If not, it was a grab bag.