Number porting in Canada: what to prepare and what slows it down

What porting is, and what it is not

Porting is the process by which a phone number moves from one carrier to another while staying the same number. In Canada, businesses can generally port local and toll-free numbers between providers, and the carrier you are leaving cannot refuse a valid request simply because it would rather keep you. It can, however, reject a request that does not match its records, and that is where most delays come from.

Porting is not the same as forwarding. Forwarding leaves the number with the old carrier and sends calls elsewhere, which means you keep paying the old carrier and depend on it indefinitely. Porting ends that relationship. It is also not instant: the two carriers exchange requests, agree a date, and the number switches on that date, not before.

The reassuring part is that the number keeps working on the old service right up to the moment it moves. A properly managed port has no gap where callers hear nothing.

What to gather before you submit anything

The losing carrier will compare your request against its own customer record, field by field. The request wins only if the fields match. So the preparation is mostly about finding out what the old carrier thinks it knows about you, which is not always what you think.

Start with the most recent bill for each account that holds a number you want to move. Businesses that have grown by acquisition or moved offices often have numbers scattered across two or three accounts, sometimes under a previous company name.

• A copy of the latest bill from each current carrier, showing the account number
• The account holder name exactly as it appears on that bill, including punctuation and any numbered company suffix
• The service address on the account, which may differ from your mailing or head-office address
• Every number to port, listed individually — main lines, direct lines, fax, toll-free
• For toll-free numbers, the responsible organization currently managing the number
• The name and title of someone authorized to sign a letter of authorization for the business
• Any account PIN or port-out passcode the old carrier has set

The things that get a port rejected

A rejection is not a refusal; it is the losing carrier saying that something in the request does not match. Each rejection adds days, because the request has to be corrected and resubmitted, and the date is set again. Knowing the common causes lets you fix them before the first submission.

The most frequent is a name mismatch. ‘Smith Plumbing’ on the request, ‘Smith Plumbing Ltd.’ on the carrier’s file, and the request bounces. Second is an address mismatch, usually because the company moved and never updated the old carrier, or because the carrier has the billing address and you supplied the site address. Third is a number that is not actually on the account you named — it was bundled under a different account years ago and nobody remembers.

Less obvious causes: a number that is part of a package with internet or television service, where the carrier requires the whole package to be dealt with; a number on a contract with early-termination terms, which does not prevent porting but does produce a bill; and an account with an outstanding balance the old carrier wants settled first.

Do not cancel the old service

This deserves its own section because it is the one mistake that cannot be undone. If you cancel the old account before the port completes, the number is released back to the carrier’s pool and the port fails, because there is nothing left to port. Recovering a released number is sometimes possible and often not.

The correct sequence is: submit the port, wait for the confirmed date, let the number move, confirm it is ringing on the new system, and only then cancel whatever remains on the old account — the internet service, the leftover lines, the equipment rental. Tell whoever handles your accounts payable not to ‘tidy up’ the old carrier until they hear from you.

The same applies to changes on the old account during the port. Do not change the address, the account name or the plan while a request is open. Each change resets the comparison and can cause a rejection.

What happens on port day

The carriers agree a date, usually a weekday, and the switch happens during business hours on that date. Some numbers move within minutes of the scheduled time; others take longer as routing updates propagate across the network. During that window, some callers may still reach the old service and others the new one. This is normal and short.

Before the date, the new system should already be configured and tested using a temporary number: the main menu, the groups, the after-hours rules, the devices. On port day, the only thing that changes is which system your published number rings into. If anything else is being changed on the same day, you have made the day harder than it needs to be.

After the port, place test calls from a cell phone to every ported number, check that outbound caller ID shows correctly, and confirm that fax and any device numbers behave as expected. Keep the old carrier’s account open for a short period so that any straggler number can be dealt with.

Toll-free numbers and multi-carrier situations

Toll-free numbers port through a different mechanism than local numbers and are managed by a responsible organization rather than a local carrier. The process is usually straightforward, but it needs its own authorization and its own timeline, so do not assume a toll-free number will move on the same date as your local lines.

Businesses with numbers spread across several carriers — a legacy landline provider, a previous VoIP provider and a toll-free reseller, say — should expect several port requests with several dates. A specialist can sequence these so the main published number moves last, after the others have proven the new system.