What is the proper procedure to activate new account (SIM) with porting

[tommyleeyyz]

Hello,

I have read the stickies, but failed to find an answer to my specific question.

I was following the procedure as per https://activate.publicmobile.ca/.

Sim Card Details and Set-up Your Self Serve Account are no problem.

However, at Step 2 Phone Number, I select "Transfer your wireless..." and the phone number eligibility box appears.  Entering my current (old) phone number seems to be successful (there is no explicit message of success), because a new 'Wireless Transfer Number' dialog appears.  I enter both my old account number and old IMEI, as well the as required fields and submit.  After a few seconds, a message, "Sorry, we are unable to process this request.  Please visit..."

From other posts I read.  It sounds like one may have to actually activate the SIM first with whatever default phone number that is assigned, then later on, port the actual desired number.

If this is the case, then is the official procedure incorrect and porting a number from the beginning of account activation not possible?

Please advise.

Thank you in advance.

[Evrion]

I activated a bit less than a week ago. I came from Koodo.

I first went through the activation process, with the same email for PM as I have for Koodo. I took an assigned number, kept the Koodo number active.

Then I went into "My Account" and changed my number to transfer over my Koodo number, which when perfectly smoothly. Up to this point, it took about an hour at most. 

Everything going perfectly smooth, although my sim card thought my phone number was still the temporary PM assigned one, even though other phones recieved me and called me as the Koodo number. I have since gone into settings where I could manually change the number the sim cards thinks my phone has to the one I actually use, that came from Koodo. This took a while to figure out, but once I did, took a minute to change.

I don't know if I got lucky somewhere, or if my experience would be typical, but it worked for me.

[Litvinau_A]

@Korth @tommyleeyyz Just like anything, it takes time, research and patience. As well as awesome people like @Luddite @Shazia_K @srlawren and many others to help you if you get lost.

I don't know about everyone, but i feel like a superman when i get to solve the issue! PM is like a little strategy game! And the best part is - Everyone is a Winner at the end

[Korth]

My experience was that the activation can require a few hours.  And a device reset/restart.

Your PM Account gets billed first.  PM's service network is then configured to permit your service.  Some behind-the-scenes stuff occurs which involves your old carrier and regulatory databases before your old number is released and PM is authorized to use it.  When all that is done, you can activate your service.  But each step can take minutes or hours to complete, sometimes only during "business hours", it's not all controlled by PM, and your previous carrier (reluctant to lose your business) can stall their end of the process a while in the hopes that you can be convinced to stay with them.

Your device will not work with PM if it's still carrier locked, of course.  And you may need to explicitly configure your APN settings to gain full data access (on older devices, anyhow).  My ancient device also needed some manual setup to get voicemail working, lol.

[tommyleeyyz]

Thank you everyone for replying.

+bravoed

[Luddite]

Well @srlawren as long as no one knows the riposte lets, as you suggest, just claim: "Great minds think alike.".  

[Shazia_K]

Hello @tommyleeyyz,

Welcome to Public Mobile, 

I'm sorry to hear about this, 

I can surely help you activate your new Public Mobile SIM card, I will send you a private message with the information I need you to provide me 🙂

Thanks @srlawren, @Luddite.

Shazia

[srlawren]

@Luddite looks like we were typing our responses at the same time.  And, great minds think more or less alike.  😉

[srlawren]

Hi @tommyleeyyz, welcome to the public mobile community!  I'm sorry to hear about your number porting issue.  What carrier are you porting your number from?  If it's from Koodo or Telus, you may want to indeed activate a temporary number first, or at least ensure you use a different email address with PM than you used with Telus/Koodo.

I'm going to flag one of commuinity moderators (PM support staff) @Shazia_K to jump in to help assist you with this.  

[Luddite]

When a port does not process it is usually an error in the data provided or the old carrier has a problrm. Either way a moderator, @Shazia_K @Kalla_A should be able to sort it for you. You will likely need to send them some information by private message. If unfamiliar with this feature, you can review it here: Private Messages - viewing and creating. 

Put you old sim back into the phone. It should operate as normal until the port completes.

Hang in there; should not be too long.