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Porting mobile number with PAC. Is your previous provider ever involved after the switch?

gameinn

Super Pro Member
Hey everyone

I have a mobile number that I originally had with Lebara around 2022 (when they had that really good 6 month deal) until about last year when I ported that number to RWG Mobile.

I'm deciding to go back to Lebara as there is some good deals. However I have some questions about porting and if I should even bother.

The number is on some sites and just for family that a point I'm wondering if I should even bother getting the PAC and porting the number and just start fresh. Some questions about porting to see if it's even worth it:

1: I don't know if I just misremembered or something but I do recall reading that even after a PAC port has been successful, calls and texts get like "forwarded" from your previous carrier to the new one. Is this complete bull?

2: The reason I bring it up is I have noticed that when a family member says they called me, sometimes I do not get a call but a voicemail arrives. I don't know if this is phone dependent since it seems to work if I have my phone active but when "inactive" it has missed the call. I do wonder if it's some problem with RWG Mobile as my other family have Lebara and seem to be fine.

3: Would there be any potential problems going from Lebara > RWG > Lebara if I did decide to do the port? One of the main reasons I just want to start with a fresh number from Lebara itself. Limits any potential problems.

4: I will need a different email when signing up with Lebara right (to take advantage of the deal)?

Thank you
 
In the UK, yes, the original mobile network remains in the loop when you transfer your number. So moving from Vodafone to EE will see incoming calls going to Vodafone first and Vodafone then passes the call to EE. This of course adds a bit more complexity and increases the probability of having a problem or dropped call, but generally networks are pretty reliable so most people wouldn't notice too much of a change with reliability.

It doesn't cascade each time you move provider though at least, so if you were to move again from EE to Three, Vodafone will be updated to then just route calls directly to Three and EE isn't in the loop just because the number once sat with them. If you port back to the original provider that gave you the number, then of course it goes back to how it would have been originally.

With your point 2 it could be any number of issues causing that, but I would think if you are getting a voice mail then the call must have been redirected okay to have connected to the voice mail service of your current provider.

Point 3, no issues moving back.

Point 4, not sure on that one.

Hope that helps.
 
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For point 2 the most likely cause would have been either your phone having temporary lost signal, or there being no capacity on your local cell, or some capacity constraint in the network leading to your local cell (likely an EE issue unless you have a very recent RWG SIM on Three).

There have been comments and observations that calls going to voicemail is happening more frequently since the networks started to switch off their 3G services, and the reuse of wireless spectrum and frequencies has yet to be reoptimised. If this was the cause this would not be unique to EE/RWG but might be worse in certain locations on certain networks where 3G used to hoover up a good proportion of calls locally.
 
2: The reason I bring it up is I have noticed that when a family member says they called me, sometimes I do not get a call but a voicemail arrives. I don't know if this is phone dependent since it seems to work if I have my phone active but when "inactive" it has missed the call. I do wonder if it's some problem with RWG Mobile as my other family have Lebara and seem to be fine.
RWG/Now Mobile don't yet support VoLTE (Calling over the 4G Network) Since they piggyback on EE's network which has now switched off 3G, your phone has to drop down to 2G quick enough to receive the incoming call otherwise it will just miss it and divert to voicemail. If your phone is locked and in standby it will almost certainly miss it since it will start looking for 3G first and realise it's not there and THEN drop to 2G by which point it's likely too late.

This fault is nothing to do with porting issues, but rather that you're on a network who both lack 3G and VoLTE which is a well known recipe for disaster.
 
Thanks everybody. Think to be ultra safe I'll just start fresh. Will atleast eliminate one possibility and make my OCD less severe. :P
 
Hey everyone

So as most of you have seen Lebara has a really good £1 for 7 months deal. I logged into my old Lebara account and it is basically blank:

3HjX8ZA.png


People on the hotukdeals thread also seem to be under the impression you just add a SIM to any existing email since you have 4 sim slots. No different email needed.

Are people absolutely sure that porting a number first given by Lebara, back to Lebara leaves it in a "virgin" state? Granted at the end of the day I'd likely be porting another number again in the future but it is quite interesting to be able to just do £1 a month for 7 months, port to say Smarty on month 8 and then get another deal with Lebara on the same email etc.
 
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I would suggest to port. It's highly likely that it's a VoLTE issue so nothing to do with the phone number or porting system. No one likes losing their number and there's no harm in porting over and seeing what happens (it'll be fine).
 
RWG/Now Mobile don't yet support VoLTE (Calling over the 4G Network) Since they piggyback on EE's network which has now switched off 3G, your phone has to drop down to 2G quick enough to receive the incoming call otherwise it will just miss it and divert to voicemail. If your phone is locked and in standby it will almost certainly miss it since it will start looking for 3G first and realise it's not there and THEN drop to 2G by which point it's likely too late.

This fault is nothing to do with porting issues, but rather that you're on a network who both lack 3G and VoLTE which is a well known recipe for disaster.
RWG do offer VoLTE but it's via Three; they basically resell Now SIMs on EE and Gamma SIMs on Three. Now reverts to 2G non HD for all calls. Gamma is similar to Smarty for businesses.
 
1: I don't know if I just misremembered or something but I do recall reading that even after a PAC port has been successful, calls and texts get like "forwarded" from your previous carrier to the new one. Is this complete bull?

Just for the record, the Technical Details section of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_number_portability has a good summary of what is involved in Mobile Network Number portability and how it's different in UK to most places
 
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