Why Can't I Port My Number?
From VoIP.ms Wiki
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In this blog, we will talk about an issue that prevents a few numbers from being portable: an unsupported rate center error. In our previous article How To Successfully Port Your Number to VoIP.ms and Avoid Common Pitfalls?, we have covered the basics of porting, explaining how does number porting works, what can be expected when transferring your number from one carrier to another, and the most common administrative reasons leading to a porting failure, namely the following: Failure to comply with requirements from the new carrier, failure to provide the right address, failure to reply to incoming communications from the new carrier in a timely manner or inaccurate corporate name registered. Unfortunately, apart from these situations that can usually be easily addressed, there’s a specific error that you might face without an easy turnaround. We are specifically speaking about the error flagged as “Rate Center Not Supported”.
Rate center is the term employed to specify the geographical location to which a specific phone number is associated with. Most of the time, a rate center is either a province or a state and is described by the phone number prefix. The rate center location is used to calculate the calling rates impacting the phone bill. Therefore, the “Rate Center Not supported” is a limitation caused by the fact that a DID number cannot be ported from a rate center to another, or in other words, an inability of the new carrier to port a DID phone number to the geographical location where one of its rate centers are located. This is possible even if the provider possesses a variety of available local numbers DID numbers for sale in the geography you wish to port your number to.
The driving factors behind this error involve many technical specificities related to the VoIP industry, what is relevant though, is that a provider having multiple phone numbers to sell from a specific rate center does not ensure portability to the same rate center.
In conclusion, even though it’s extremely unlikely to be faced with a “Rate center not supported” situation, this is still a limitation presented on different occasions by telecommunication companies. Before choosing a new carrier, it’s advisable that you ensure your number is portable. At VoIP.ms we offer a free availability tool (Click here for Canadian DIDs, and here for US DIDs). We also have a wide array of articles on our Wiki Page about Porting that might ease a few of your concerns regarding this topic, especially if you have multiple numbers to port out, either if you are a small business or a reseller. Lastly, our Customer Care Specialist team is mostly available to clarify any questions or concerns you might have via Live Chat.
Wiki - https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Porting_a_Number
YouTube Video Tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnVXPP1S9l0
If you have any unanswered questions or need additional support with your porting issues do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
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