To anyone else having activation/porting issues:

[KCH]

During my initial activation I was running into issues with the porting over of my old number. The page would say I need to fill at least one field, but all fields were filled! This would cause the SIM# to hang as it was being used by the current session and told me to attempt again in 50 minutes.

Solution: continue activation without porting, register a new number, then once the SIM is activated, go into your self-serve profile and port your old number from there. (Plan and Add-ons > Change Phone Number > Transfer a wireless number). My old number was successfully ported within 30 seconds. I received a notification from my old provider within one minute that my service with them had ended.

[kselmak]

This seems to be very common issue. Delay porting and everything is much faster and smoother you have your account So you can contact support, you have a temporarily number so you can make calls while you wait for port to finish, it may take long time. And another benefit is trying out the service before. 

Actually maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to have porting as a separate process and not part of sign up at all.

Maybe just have a checkmark if you want to port so at the end of the process you're taken to the page that informs you of your temporary number and let's you fill in port request. 

Since you can port your landline or voip number there will always be cases where people have to wait for it for hours or days, so why not remove it from signup process completely. Then sign up should really be done I minutes, even if you use dial up. 

Would that make sense

[KCH]

It was Telus.

[KCH]

I made numerous attempts with multiple different formats of entry into the prescribed boxes with no success.

Am just thankful the post-activation port worked. Not trying to start an argument, just want to pass on the information to anyone who may be expericening the same issue.

[acmethod]

I'm with @will13am it seems like the mods reconmend this too. Activate then Port. I've done 3 phones in the last 2 month using this approach. 

Lol, i am always nervous that someone i'm walking through the process is going to run into issues, and freak at me for convincing them to switch.

[will13am]

This could restart the great debate, my preference is always to activate with a new number first and then port after the account has been confirmed to be fully functional.  Regardless how the porting is done, the boxes should be filled out as prescribed.  Enter something into one of the first 3 boxes only.  When entering the account number, spaces and separators such as hyphens must be excluded.  When entering the name, make sure it is exactly as shown on the bill from the old provider.  As crazy as it may sound, some bills have mispelled names or have hyphens where it is not expected.

[ZfromVanC]

hmm, maybe it has something to do with the carrier you were coming from? did it happen to be Koodo?

[KCH]

It would not port regardless of how much or little information I input.

[ZfromVanC · Accepted solution]

If you read closely on the initial porting number page it says you only need to fill out 3 of the feilds, not all of them.

I'm glad you were able to successfully port your number in the end though!