From Republic by Dish to US Mobile, an in-progress review

You could try:

  1. Dial *#*#4636#*#* from the Phone app
  2. Tap Phone Information
  3. Is there an option for WiFi Calling Provisioned?
  4. If it’s off, are you able to toggle it on?

What’s the Android version?

If the idea here is to review US Mobile, wouldn’t it be better if these problems were routed through US Mobile’s support reps? After all, a big part of choosing a phone company is the quality of support.

Well, sure. I wasn’t really seeking help, I was just commenting on it in case it’s something that matters to others considering US Mobile.

I want to get the phone somewhere with cell data before I get too involved with the support reps, because I’ve found some problems fix themselves once the phone has a good cell data connection.

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Update:

It turns out that porting a number after activation is not possible, but US Mobile can cancel the current activation and you can reactivate the same SIM card to port your number in.

My port request is nearly 24 hours old with both companies telling me that Republic simply hasn’t responded to the request, yet. According to the agent I spoke with at Republic, they are seeing a higher than normal number of port requests and are backed up. Imagine that!

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I received the same notice about an hour and a half after submitting both of my port requests. When you get it USM has suspended the port process on their end.

For the first port it was about 12 hours later that the port was reactivated on the USM side and completed successfully. I remember my phone losing its ability to connect to RW well before USM notified me that the port was complete.

For the second request RW would no give me any type of status of the port out telling me to take it up with USM. I decided to look at my wife’s phone and noticed it could not longer connect to RW’s network. At that time I replied to the USM port suspended email, they restarted things on their end and the port completed. My suggestion is to not trust RW and see what the phone thinks is happening. If you can’t connect I’d reply to the USM email telling that your phone can’t connect and RW can’t give actual status. After this there is a good chance that USM will reactivate the port process on their side and it will complete.

Well that’s just lovely since the phone number being ported is attached to the phone in the hands of my 80+ -year-old mother-in-law who lives two hours away.

I began the port yesterday, thinking I was giving it plenty of time, and took her the new phone with the US Mobile SIM cards in it today. She understands that when the old phone stops texting, to start using the new phone. I was not expecting this extra layer of complication.

Thanks for sharing your experience. At least I’ll know what to do when she calls me from her house phone to tell me neither phone is working.

I suspect that on the USM side that if the port does not complete within a certain amount of time it gets assigned to a batch process to handle later, i.e. suspended. I think I noted above that feel 1.5 hours is too aggressive but it’s their ship. I was more bothered by RWs response that it was “in progress” and refusing to give me more information or transfer me to the porting team.

For your mother this might be a good excuse to take a bit of time off and visit her. :slightly_smiling_face:

Here’s an interesting and (for me) unexpected twist.
Today I used the Executive Escalations email address @rolandh has shared, asking for assistance with my number transfer, as US Mobile still had not received any response to the transfer request.

The person tasked with my escalation asked me to have US Mobile re-submit my port request using the account number that starts with A.

There was some back and forth over the course of the day as I balked at this response, and also because US Mobile gave me a scary warning that if they canceled the current port request to resubmit, and the number had been released, I would lose the number. I double-checked that with Republic, then gave US Mobile approval to resubmit with what I felt certain was the wrong account number.

Much to my surprise, I’ve just gotten word that the port went through. My mother-in-law’s number is now assigned to my US Mobile account.

Now I just have to figure out how to remotely guide her through rebooting the phone. :weary:

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This is fascinating! When I called Republic for port out information, the agent who took the call assured me the account number beginning with A was correct.

I did not use the account number offered by the agent but rather used the 10-digit phone number (I have a 5.0 account) I was transferring to Mobi. The port took 4 hours but was otherwise flawless.

It puzzles me why US Mobile places ports on hold absent a rejection merely because a response is not received as quickly as expected.

Right? And two agents had assured me the phone number was the account number, as would be expected for 5.0 service lines.

It makes me wonder if the migration to Boost Infinite made the account number change (if so, other 5.0 users will share this experience) or if my escalations person told the porting team to just approve it no matter what to get this crazy lady out of his hair. :laughing:

I’m betting on the escalations agent wanting to get the “crazy lady” out of their hair. :joy:

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Interesting reading about your porting experience!

When I called RW I asked the agent if my phone number was my account number and was assured it was (no mention of an “A”). Like you @southpaw I used my computer to start the port. After submitting I got a email back in just a few seconds saying that the port was on hold and for me to contact my previous carrier and ask them to respond to the port request. I called Republic and the agent immediately transferred me to a porting specialist who fixed it in a few seconds. My phone number ported over a few minutes later :slightly_smiling_face:

It was a little bumpy, but went quick and every rep I spoke to was kind and knew what to do. :partying_face:

Whoa! What magic do you have?!

That’s good news. When I transferred our 5.0 account I used the phone number as the account number. I wonder if the difference in account number didn’t matter on the resubmission and that RW was just looking for your request having validated you via customer service. Sometimes it is easier to let things go through than to worry about everything being perfect.

I think USM is being a little over zealous on what constitutes a hung port submission. I received the notice after about an hour and half for both phone numbers. They might have some system related reason but to me that means they need to correct their side of the process to be able to handle an asynchronous process better.

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I just moved my number from BI to US Mobile. I still have my wife’s number with BI for now.
I ended up using the US Mobile app to set up an account, add a pool, and input the port information. They did not have Boost Infinite as a choice for provider you are currently with but did have Republic-wireless so used it, then contacted them to make sure it was not an issue and then contacted BI to make sure they had received the request. It took around 5 hours for the transfer to complete using eSIM on an iPhone SE 2022.
I was able to follow the progress with the app.
I am using the Verizon network

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I made the change in August. Things have been fine with a few glitches.

I discovered that with Verizon, you don’t get visual voicemail, and when Wifi is on, you don’t get Voicemail notifications. I would get a call that went to VM, then no notification that there was a VM.

The workaround is:

  • Turn Wifi off, wait, then back on – VM notifications will appear.
  • Also, any time you restart the phone, notifications will appear.

Dial “*86” to retrieve voicemails.

Not great, but not terrible. I don’t get lots of voicemails so I can live with it, and if I get a “missed call” notification, I either turn Wifi off/on, or call in to check for messages.

Maybe this will change in the future…things are always changing.
I hope you have good luck with US Mobile!

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It may not be a Verizon network issue. I do not have the same issue as you, at least not yet. I have tested calls while at home on WiFi and received immediate notification and visual voicemail with transcription. I am using an iPhone with eSIM so that may be the difference

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Visual Voicemail is different on iPhone than Android. MobileX (which also uses Verizon’s network) even has a toggle in their app:

Usually, this is set by the provider on the back end.

I do think an interaction between Android and Verizon’s network is involved. I’ve had a similar experience to that of @NancyM using Visual Voicemail on Mobi (another Verizon based provider). I’ve found no need to turn WiFi off to access Visual Voicemail but a cell data connection to Verizon’s network seems to be required.

I’ve yet to find time to do more extensive testing with Mobi and/or MobileX. :disappointed:

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Hi @NancyM,

I found some time to play with various combinations of phones and SIMs.

I’m reasonably convinced there is a need for mobile data for functioning visual voicemail within the Phone app when using providers on Verizon’s network and Android phones. My experience with both Mobi and MobileX mirrors yours with US Mobile.

Using a Google Pixel 6a, I do not need to turn WiFi off, however, a mobile data connection to Verizon’s network is necessary. With both a factory unlocked 2021 Moto G Pure and a carrier unlocked 2022 Moto G Power, both a mobile data connection to Verizon’s network and turning WiFi off is necessary for visual voicemail in the Phone app to function.

For laughs and giggles, I repeated the scenarios with the same three phones and a Tello (T-Mobile network) SIM. With the Pixel 6a, visual voicemail functioned with or without a mobile data connection and there was no need to turn WiFi off. Using both the 2021 Moto G Pure and the 2022 Moto G Power, visual voicemail wouldn’t work at all whether WiFi was on or off. Visual voicemail would just hang at activating.

Sadly, with Android, the results are frustratingly inconsistent depending upon the combination of OEM firmware on the phone and MNO network. The referenced Pixel 6a runs Android 14 while the two Motos are on Android 12.

In the grand scheme of things visual voicemail isn’t nearly as important to me as it once was. Generally, those who call me and fail to reach me follow-up with a text message in addition to leaving voicemail. I recognize this isn’t ideal for all.

If it were sufficiently important to me and I couldn’t get a particular combination of Android phone and MNO network to produce functioning visual voicemail in the Phone app, I’d resort to a third party visual voicemail app of some sort. Or, one could just switch to iPhone :open_mouth: where these things just tend to work.

Wow, you did a lot of experimenting!

I can live with what I have. I’m not paying for a super-deluxe phone or service, and while visual voicemail is nice, I’m ok without it.
The main issue I had is that the voicemail notifications weren’t coming through, so I didn’t know whether I had a VM or not!
I can live with what I have, but the frustrating part was finding it out the hard way!!

I’ll look more closely at a Pixel for my next phone. My first phone was a Nexus 5 and a few years later I looked at Pixels to replace it, but the Pixel phones seemed gigantic in size in comparison.