Signed up my uncle to Buzz Telco about two months ago.. after a nightmare of outages and downtime combined with zero support from them i am considering switching him to another provider. I finally got his VoiP service back up after over a month of it being down and now his nbn service and voip are down once again. of the 2 moths he has been with them he has probably had 2 weeks of a working VoiP service. The only issue with switching is that his new potential ISP (Mate Comminicate) has told me that porting his VOIP number across will take anywhere up to 5-6 weeks? His voip number is extremely important as he uses it for his small business (taking/making orders and written on any of his advertising) so i would rather him not be without his voip service for that amount of time. Mate communicate suggested i keep the voip service active during the 5 weeks of porting time but even if that was possible (probably not since i doubt buzz will keep the voip line active with no NBN service with them) the voip services isn't even working now to keep active!
So really what I'm asking is how long does a porting a VOIP number take? are some providers faster than others? is there a way to avoid any more down time of his voip service or can i do some type of call forwarding on that phone number?
it seems like my best option right now is to try get his NBN and Voip service working again with Buzz but that is proving to be extremely difficult between no answers from support, no return phone calls, missing nbnco appointments, missing support tickets etc. still 2 weeks down and no fix in sight at the moment.
Standard number porting takes UP TO 5-6 weeks. I ported a couple numbers to VoIP it takes 2 weeks. It's not about how long, it's about your option.
If you want to keep the number, never cancel it from the losing provider because you might not get it back. If this is the case you need to contact the new provider to port it out to keep the number.
Alternative option is to setup call forwarding of the VoIP number to your uncle's mobile or something while you fix it.
From what you described, it looks like the problem is the nbn connection at your uncle's place? VoIP connection can be made from anywhere with internet. As long as you have the VoIP login + server details, you can use the VoIP from anywhere with internet/voip capable device. Buzz Telco definitely gives you the login info when signing up or by accessing the web login.