Ooma Forums

Hi Rodak,

There must be a mass-exedous from AT&T going on... I'm doing the exact same stuff right now (and have the same apprehensions as you!)

From my experience, for DSL dry-loop (direct), you will receive a new account number associated with it. When Ooma ports your existing phone number, this will effectively cancel your old landline service and anything else associated with it (i.e. DSL).

If you separate your landline and your DSL account, you will essentially be cancelling your current DSL account that is tied to your landline, and will be creating a new DSL account (and will receive two monthly bills). The problem with doing this is that you have to deal with people and try to get CS to understand what you are doing and hope they have it right.

From my homework, this is what I'm planning on doing:
-request port through Ooma
-receive actual port date from Ooma
-log into my ATT.com account (from my existing customer info) and order the direct DSL to install the same day that the Ooma port will be.

(it sounds like there has been good success with this method)

(ANYONE - PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG HERE:)
from the sounds of it, your DSL router passwords, and settings will be the same as before and there will just be a period where you have no DSL or phone service during the switch.

hope this helps,

well, i ported over a while ago and figured that it would be good to give the real story.

I followed these steps and things went quite smooth:

1) i chose to have the temp new phone number when i setup my new Ooma
1.5) i also setup my Ooma premier free trial to forward messages to my cell phone on network outages.
2) i setup my ATT land line to have call forwarding to my new Ooma phone number ($12)
3) i setup ATT to switch off my land line/DSL account on x day, and start a new DSL dry loop only account on X day.
4) i did the paperwork to have my land line ported to Ooma on x day
5) while ATT was setting up my new modem on x day, there was time when the network was not setup and we had to work to get it up and going (around 4 hours??). During the switch over, two people called my land line, which was forwarded to my Ooma account, but since the network was down, they were forwarded to my cell phone..

good luck all.

Thanks oomame! I followed the instructions to the tee, after trying to call into ATT CS, where I had to speak to multiple agents who wanted to charge me $200 to set it up. This definitely works. I probably had a 3 hour window where I didn't have DSL connectivity, but 3 hours versus $200... I'll go with the 3 hours.

Thanks for the great advice.

Thanks, oomame, for the call forwarding advice. I hadn't thought of that part to avoid missing any calls during the outage.

I believe OOMA's advise on porting is designed to eliminate the chances that you will lose your home phone number during the porting process. The timing process you are describing obviously works but it also leaves a window where AT&T could possibly re-assign your number to a new customer. Doesn't the switch in DSL service also force you go through the DSL setup process for your new DSL account?

Update: Called AT&T and asked to separate DSL from my phone line. Service rep asked if I was planning on porting my number to an VOIP. I told her that was the plan. She indicated that I should set up the order with AT&T for 2 weeks out to switch from DSL/Phone and then notify VOIP provider to start the PORT process for the scheduled DSL stand alone date. If the OOMA cannot match the date then call AT&T back refer to order number and sync the dates. Once the switch is made then I must call AT&T and transfer my old DSL account info to the new account. This will assure that my DSL infomation (email address, etc.) stays the same. AT&T was very open to this change. Offered me temporary savings to keep land line but no real pressure. They said there may need to be service tech call but that it would be free and I should at the most have 1/2 to 1 day of DSL downtime if everything didn't work smoothly.

When you port with ATT and have to change your DSL with ATT can you keep the same email address?

PeteJC wrote:I believe OOMA's advise on porting is designed to eliminate the chances that you will lose your home phone number during the porting process. The timing process you are describing obviously works but it also leaves a window where AT&T could possibly re-assign your number to a new customer.

There is no way you lose your number during the porting process. If a number gets available (someone deactivates account or something), the number goes through an aging process (a month or more) before it can get assigned again.

6782987559 wrote:When you port with ATT and have to change your DSL with ATT can you keep the same email address?

Yes. But confirm with AT&T. It is not a good idea to tie your email to your internet service provider since you'll change to another eventually. Create a free email account with gmail, live, hotmail etc and slowly get your contacts to use your new email.

I am not having in problem porting to Ooma from ATT with combined phone and DSL. FIRST call ATT to separate phone and DSL in different accounts and then ask them to port the phone. After that is completed then contact Ooma to take the # ported. ATT customer service was excellent.
Jim

One has to be persistent with ATT and it takes some time. ATT is a large bureaucracy.

Most of this thread is old, so I wanted to update it with my experience. It was extremely frustrating. It took many calls to straighten out and hold times were consistently over 20 or 30 minutes, so call times were about 45 minutes, sometimes longer with AT&T. I got disconnected several times while they were trying to connect me to the right department. Back to the start with the 20+ minute hold time. It was absolutely infuriating.

The mistake I made was trying to overlap the two separate processes. I set up the dry loop. This was scheduled about 2 weeks out. I then requested the port. This was supposed to take 4-5 weeks. That is what all the information said and even the initial estimated completion date confirmed this. Suddenly I got an email with a much earlier date for the port. It actually took about a week from the original request. This was a major problem because porting the number before the dry loop was installed would have meant a loss of both phone and internet after the date of the port. Fixing that problem was a huge hassle (unlike someone mentioned earlier in this thread). Nobody wanted to take responsibility for fixing it. Each company pointed to the other. The best solution offered was to submit a port cancellation request through Ooma. This was offered with a $75 fee!! This in addition to losing the original $25 port request fee. I believe I was talking to someone outside of the country with Ooma, and communication was difficult, to say the least. Neither company had an attitude of trying to solve anything, but instead seemed confused and/or seemed to be thinking, "well, that's your problem, not mine."

The lesson is: do not submit the port request until the dry loop installation is fully complete and confirmed working.

You do not want to be in a position of having to call either one of these companies to try to straighten anything out. Believe me! It will drive you crazy!

I have been with Ooma for 3 years and am overall very happy with them. The problems I am describing here (setting up my Mother's line) do not change that. Just do this carefully. You have been warned!