Porting Your Phone Numbers to VoIP
The cost savings and flexibility of VoIP mean that it is an increasingly popular option for businesses. One of the things that worries firms intending to make the switch, however, is what happens to their existing phone numbers.
With the old ISDN network due to be switched off in a few years, this is a problem more and more companies are facing, but fortunately there is a solution.
Understanding Numbers
In the UK phone numbers are issued by the regulator, Ofcom. These are given to service providers in batches, and individual numbers or blocks are then allocated to customers. At the moment there are around 600 companies in the UK that hold batches of phone numbers.
When you switch to a wholesale voice termination provider, your number needs to move from the original issuer to the new provider. The way this usually works is that calls are still …