Number Porting for USA/Canada

Number Porting allows you to transfer ownership of your numbers from your existing carrier to Sinch. The ported in numbers will be voice enabled and will route voice calls to your designated application. A ported in number can also be configured to send and receive messages through Sinch as your service provider. The following shows how to port numbers via the dashboard’s GUI, but porting can also be done via the API (see Porting API). 

Note: for messaging only transfers, customers should instead use SMS hosting. 

Pre-port Settings

Prior to submitting your first port you should set your porting preferences. First navigate to “Number Porting USA/Canada” and click on settings at the top of the page.

At a minimum, set how you wish to receive notifications about the status of your ports (via email and/or webhooks). You can also set other default settings.

Creating a Port Request

The following are the 9 steps to the port submission process:
 

1. Choose Local or Toll-Free

Note: Toll free porting will be added later.


 

2. Add & Validate Numbers

Numbers can be added to your port (up to 500 per port order) in one of two ways, either manual entry or via attaching a spreadsheet:

• Manual. Type or paste up to 500 North American local numbers into the box provided in e.164 format.  
• Spreadsheet. First download the provided CSV template then populate the first column with the numbers in e.164 format. Then either drag the csv file back to the dashboard or browse to find it on your computer. 

1. Once numbers have been added, you must “check Portability.”  
2. A warning will be provided for any number that is not portable and those numbers must be removed prior to continuing the port.
   
    
    
3. An indicator will be provided letting you know the carriers being ported from and that the remaining are all portable.
   
   

3. Request a port date

1.  Set your preferred Firm Order Commit (FOC) date & time.  If approved, this will be when your port occurs. 
    
2. Choose if your port is automatically activated. Note, if you select manual activation at your FOC date & time, you will have 24 hours to manually activate your numbers. If you don't activate your numbers in that time window, your order may be canceled.
   
   

4. Add Addresses

1. Provide the account and address details that match the billing info with the existing carrier for one (or more) phone numbers.
   Note: Other than account PIN (which should be entered if you have one) each field is required.  
   1. Auth Name is the person on the losing carrier account who has authority to port numbers. 
   2. Full Name is the Business Name/Entity who owns the number. 
       
2. If you have additional address, click the + to add another address.
   Note: If you have multiple PINs on the same address, you’ll need to enter multiple copies of the address for each PIN.
   
    
    

5. Assign Numbers to Addresses

Each number to be ported will need to be associated to an address. Select each number (or all) and then “assign” those numbers to one of the addresses.  An indicator will show how many numbers are assigned to each address.

6. Routing

You may optionally assign each number on the port to an application (Voice & Video, Elastic SIP trunk, or Fax). As above select each number then “assign” it to the correct application (or skip this step, and you can do this after the port occurs).

7. SMS configuration

Similarly, you may optionally assign each number to a specific SMS service or skip this step and assign it after the port occurs. When the port occurs, there may be a delay between the voice and SMS assignment.   Note: after the port occurs you may have to apply the number to a campaign. See 10DLC Brand and campaign registration.  

8. Attachments

A Letter of Authorization (LoA) is recommended for porting. A template is provided which you can fill out, sign and upload as an attachment to your order.  

9. Finalize and Submit

Review the final details of your order and add an optional reference name to your order. If everything is correct, submit your order.


 

Existing orders

Any previously submitted order will be shown on the porting page.

Each order will have one of the following order statuses: 

Click on the order ID to get more details about that order and each phone number in it. Each number will be in one of the following statuses (summarized at the top of the page) :

In addition to seeing the status of the order and each number, you can interact with the following elements of the order:

1. Download (or add) attachments 
2. Edit the order (If the order isn’t completed) 
3. Activate the order (if ready) 
4. Export the order to a .csv fie 
5. Leave comments to be seen by the order operations team (as well as see their comments).