Porting from Virgin to SpeakOut, Account Numbers, IMEIs and MEIDs ... | Technical service details | Consumer forum

Hi,

Just successfully ported from Virgin to SpeakOut (SO). It wasn't as smooth as I hoped, so I thought I would document what I learned.

- I was on a prepaid plan, and timed the port to take place three days before the prepaid minutes on my Virgin account were about to expire. That way, my existing phone number still works, as required for the port, and I waste as few unused prepaid minutes as possible, keeping in mind that the port can take up to three days... and even that is cutting it close. But that worked well for me.
- if porting from another carrier, activate the phone first, THEN talk to SO customer service about porting the old number over. Initially you will be set up on a temporary number on your new SO phone, but once the port goes through, everything will work under your existing number.
- the SpeakOut customer service will require your account number and password. In the case of Virgin Mobile Canada customers, the account number will be the same as your phone number. SO customer service may be confused on this point, so if there's any doubt, insist that this is the case.
- SO customer service will ask for the IMEI number printed on the sticker underneath the battery, in your old phone. You will look inside your old phone and find an MEID number. If you mention MEID, they may get confused, and insist on your finding an IMEI. Just give them the MEID number, and don't tell them that it's an MEID. I supplied the 18-digit decimal MEID value. More on this IMEI/MEID stuff below.

In a nutshell, that worked for me, and the port took a little under 24 hours.

What went wrong. When I first called, I skipped the activation prompts, and went straight to customer service, because I was unsure whether I had to arrange the port first, or activate first. The customer service rep was nice and explained that I had to activate first and then we went ahead and did that, and it went well, no problem, and I was told that my phone would be working with its temporary number within 30 minutes, which it was.

Meanwhile, we tried to arrange the port. I was asked for my Virgin account number, and I gave my telephone number, as that's all I've ever used in my dealings with Virgin, and as far as I knew, that was the account number. The customer service rep was convinced that wasn't the case, and asked me to call Virgin and have them give me the account number. So I called Virgin, and you guessed it, I sat on hold for fifteen minutes, only to find out that yes, my phone number was my account number.

So I called SO back, and tried again to do the port. They asked me for the IMEI on my old phone. All I have is an MEID. They insisted that I must give them an IMEI. They were nice about it, and offered to try using the MEID, but suggested that the port might fail. I wasn't convinced, but told them that I would look into it and call back.

Spent sometime googling, and discovered that phones on GSM networks like Rogers, Fido, and SpeakOut have IMEI numbers, and phones on CDMA networks like Telus, Bell, and Virgin have MEID numbers. So basically, they were asking me for something that I couldn't possibly give them. IMEI numbers are typically 15 digits, and MEIDs, at least in my case, are 18 digits. Note: these values are sometimes expressed in hexadecimal alphanumeric equivalents... I'm referring to the numeric decimal values, which I find much less confusing.

Called SO again. This time, the customer service rep had no problem with the phone-number/account-number thing, in fact seemed to accept it as quite natural. When asked for my IMEI, I simply gave them the 18-digit MEID number, without mentioning the M-word. That worked.

So all's well that ends well, but it took three phone calls and probably an extra hour of wait time and research, where I would have expected one call to do the trick, as was the case in my previous port from Telus to Virgin. I'm quite surprised that one of the reps would have had difficulty porting a Virgin account because of the account-number question, and another seemed unaware of MEID numbers. I found a similar post from three months ago, so it's not like I'm the first Virgin Mobile customer who's come over to SO. I kind of got the impression that I was dealing with an American call centre, and wonder if they're not all used to dealing with our carriers, and former CDMA customers. Odd.

Anyway, that's my story. Cheers.