Number porting

Number porting is the process of moving an existing phone number from its current carrier (the 'losing' carrier) to a new one (the 'gaining' carrier) while keeping the digits the same. It is a regulator-protected right in most jurisdictions, governed in the EU by Article 106 of the European Electronic Communications Code (Directive (EU) 2018/1972) and by equivalent regimes in the UK, US, Australia and most other markets.

Geographic numbers usually port within 1-7 working days once paperwork is clean. Freephone numbers often take 2-4 weeks because the originating-network agreements have to be re-pointed. Mobile numbers vary wildly by market - some are next-day, some take 10 working days. The exact lead time per country and per range is on the coverage page; the porting team confirms it with you before the LOA goes out.

An LOA (Letter of Authorisation) is the document the customer signs to instruct the losing carrier to release the numbers. The losing carrier validates the LOA against current invoice details - legal entity name, address, account number - before releasing. Tiny mismatches (an old address, a renamed legal entity) trigger a 'reject and resubmit' loop that adds weeks. We pre-validate every LOA against the customer's current invoice from the losing carrier so the first submission is the only submission.

Yes. For sensitive cutovers we run a live war-room with the losing carrier, the gaining-side network team, and the customer on the call. The receiving SBC and the new routing rules are pre-configured before the window opens, so the cutover itself is a SIP re-point that takes seconds, not minutes. Our case study on a 8,400-number healthcare port-in across two windows had zero customer-visible outage on any helpline.

Port-in is supported in every country marked port-in on the coverage page. Where the regulator forbids porting for a given range (for example certain freephone ranges in some emerging markets) the catalog says so explicitly and we provide a forwarded-number alternative during the transition.

No. Porting is a stand-alone service - you can use GlobalXess as the gaining carrier for your existing numbers without ordering any new numbers from us. Many customers do start with a port-in to consolidate carriers and only then expand into new geographies on the GlobalXess catalog.