[VoIP] Porting phone number, what will happen with the POTS line?

[John R. Covert]

To make a long story short, I had a port away from Verizon
completed on March 9th, and we still have battery on the line
as of today, 1 August.

Back in Jan/Feb/Mar I ported two of my five Verizon numbers to
Vonage.  These had been the two numbers on one of my two ISDN
lines; I wanted to cut back to a single ISDN line and a single
POTS line, and I wanted the numbers from the disconnected ISDN
line to come into the Asterisk via my Vonage softphone.

You can't port ISDN numbers.  So I had to disconnect the ISDN
line, and immediately after the ISDN line was disconnected,
have Verizon install a new POTS line with one of the two ISDN
numbers.  (I decided to do this serially, and had only 30 days
to at least get both numbers moved to POTS, otherwise they would
go back into the pool, no longer reserved for me.)

Came the day of the POTS install, and nothing happened.  Verizon
informed me when I inquired that there had been no need for
anyone to come out to the house, that they had tested, and the
line was active in the spare NI on the side of the house.  Of
course, it wasn't.  A day later, they sent someone out and
figured out where the cross-connect was missing.  A couple
of days later, I figured the order was complete.

I initiated the port from the Vonage side on January 23, 2007.
They sent a request to the carrier on January 24, 2007.  Verizon
immediately replied "cannot be ported."  It turned out that
the order wasn't really completely closed.  On January 29, 2007,
Verizon finally approved the transfer (in the meantime I had to
beat on Vonage to get them to even SEND the request a second
time) and scheduled the port for February 7, 2007.

Keep in mind that when porting to Vonage, you will always
already have temporary service on another number until the
port goes into effect.  At the moment of the actual port,
that temporary number becomes a virtual number.  It can
either be kept permanently as a virtual number (for about
$5+fees per month) or go back into the pool in a couple of
days.

On the day of the port the first thing that happened was that
calls from within Vonage to the ported number started being
delivered to the Vonage line, and outgoing calls from that
line had the ported caller id.  Around 9am, calls from outside
Vonage also started going to Vonage.  But it took well into the
afternoon before all calls moved over, i.e. before the LNP database
was fully consistent for all accesses.  Outgoing calls were still
possible from the Verizon line for most of the day, but then the
line dropped to battery only.

Then I ordered another POTS install for the second number.  Even
though they had to do nothing but issue the order, I was given a
due date of February 19th.  Shortly after midnight on the morning
of 19 Feb, the POTS line was in and working.  But that wasn't good
enough for Verizon.  Oh, no.

All of the utilities except gas enter my house at the same point,
right next to the kitchen door.  There is utility power, a drop
from the cable company, a six-pair copper cable from Verizon,
and Verizon Business FiOS 20Mb/5Mb service all right next to each
other. The six pair cable terminates in a WeCo 116D3B-6 screw-box.
It was installed in the days before external NIs, and there were
two three-pair cables run from it to a little six pair terminal
block mounted in the basement.  Over the years, things changed.
At one point, I had all six pairs in use.  The POTS line from
the Acton C.O., a two-wire SOP (station off premises) from DEC's
No 1. ESS centrex in Maynard, a four-wire SOP from DEC's PBX in
Acton Nagog Woods, and, for a brief period after the installation
of a new PBX at DEC in Marlboro, for the purposes of testing, a
second 4-wire SOP.  Eventually some of this service was removed
and replaced with an ISDN lines and a second POTS line; then a
second ISDN line was ordered and the POTS number moved into one
of the SPIDs of the ISDN line.  And at some point two small
3"x3 1/2" J-112 NIs were installed.

Anyway, about 9am I happened to walk into the kitchen, and
found TWO techs outside the house in the process of removing
both NIs, disconnecting the fairly complicated cross-connects
going into and out of the basement, and about to screw some
sort of HUGE new two-line NID on the side of the house.

I managed to get them to stop, explaining that the line that
had just been installed did not require any premises work;
the existing NIs were just fine, and besides, they shouldn't
spend a bunch of money, since the line was going to be pulled
right back out within a week and ported to Vonage.  There is
only a $13.50 C.O. work installation fee in Massachusetts and
no charge for outside plant work, and I really didn't want to
waste their time and money.

The next port was ordered on Feb 22nd after Verizon assured me
that the order was complete, but it apparently wasn't complete
enough, because they bounced it again on the 23rd and finally
accepted it on the 28th, with a due date of March 9th.

The transfer process was pretty much the same, except that
for about two days after the Verizon POTS line was disconnected,
there were still occasions where calls from various places attempted
to go to Verizon and got a "the number you have called is not in
service" announcement.

And there is still battery but no dialtone on the circuit as
of right now.

/john