Keep your business number when changing phone systems

Your shop's number is on the van, the shopfront, the Google listing and in every regular client's contacts. So when the phone setup stops working for you, changing it feels risky. It doesn't have to be. You can usually keep the number, and the real decision is whether the move is worth making and what changes on the day it switches.

Can you keep your business number when you change phone systems?

Usually, yes. Moving an existing Australian number from one provider to another is called porting, and the ACMA sets out how it works: your new provider organises it, your current provider has to release the number, and you keep the number while the service behind it changes. It's the same thing that happens when a personal mobile moves carriers.

There's one catch you can't negotiate with. Only an active number can be ported. Cancel your old service first and the number is disconnected, and a disconnected number isn't yours to move any more. Leave the old account running until the new provider tells you the port is done.

Ask the new provider one more thing before you sign: whether they'll accept your number at all. The ACMA is clear that they usually will, but they don't have to.

Which kind of number do you have?

Check this before anything else, because it decides which services can take your number.

Your number starts with	It can usually move to	It can't move to
04 (mobile)	Another mobile service, including a virtual mobile number that runs in an app on your team's phones	A landline service
02, 03, 07 or 08 (landline)	Another landline provider	An 04 mobile service
1300 or 1800	Another provider that offers those numbers	A mobile or landline service

If your shop advertises a landline and you want calls answered on mobiles, that's a real constraint on the decision rather than a detail to sort out later. You'd be choosing between keeping the landline and changing the number everyone knows.

When the move is worth making

It earns its keep when the number is the asset and the handset is the problem. Calls that only ring in the shop while you're mid-groom out the back. A second number for the mobile van that clients never learned. A team sharing one physical phone. A personal mobile doing business work that you now want kept separate.

Leave it alone when the phone already works. A number your team can answer, on a plan you're happy with, isn't a problem a port solves, and every port brings paperwork and a switchover you need to be around for.

What should you ask about cost and timing?

Two providers charge you here: the new one to take the number, and the old one to let it go. The ACMA notes that your previous provider may charge a porting fee, and you still owe any final bill and contract commitments there. If a charge looks wrong, you can take it to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. Every telco also has to publish a Critical Information Summary for each plan, a short document with the fees, inclusions and exclusions. Read it, and get these answered in writing:

• Setup: is porting in included, or charged separately?
• Monthly: what does it include, and is it priced per number, per person or per device?
• Calls and messages: are standard Australian calls, texts and picture messages unlimited, metered or capped?
• Timeframe: how many business days does the provider allow for a port?
• Leaving: is there a minimum term or an exit charge?
• Emergency calls: which numbers work, and what address do emergency services see?

The part most groomers underestimate

An app-based phone runs over the internet. If the internet or the power goes down, so does the phone, and that includes emergency calls. Some services also give emergency services the address you registered, not where you're standing, which matters if you groom mobile. If this becomes the only phone in a room with dogs, wet floors and clippers, keep another way to call 000 at every location and keep the registered address current.

Why do ports get rejected?

Mostly for ordinary admin reasons: the details you give don't match what your current provider holds, the account isn't eligible to port, or the number is tied up in a contract. A rejection delays the switch. It doesn't put the number at risk, because your old service keeps running. And if a provider disconnects the number by mistake, the ACMA says it must be re-issued to you within one business day of asking.

Mobile ports also carry an extra identity check, for example a code sent by SMS to the number itself, so have that phone with you on the day.

Ask what happens to any setup fee if the port fails. A fair answer is a refund, or a free re-submission once the problem is fixed, at your choice.

Will calls stop working while the number moves?

No. The new provider submits the request, your current provider checks it against the account, and the number moves across. Once it's submitted, the ACMA says a mobile port usually takes about 3 hours and a single landline 8 to 15 days. A provider's quoted timeframe can be longer because it includes its own setup, so ask what theirs is. Until that moment, calls and texts still reach your old phone. Afterwards they reach the new service. Your new provider should tell you when the port is complete, and until then plan for a short window where some clients' texts land on one phone and some on the other.

Porting more than one number? Each goes through as its own request, and the ACMA notes that multi-number landline ports can take up to 30 days. Move the number clients actually ring first.

Once it's done, test it from someone else's phone: ring it, text it, send it a photo, and listen to the voicemail greeting. Then check who on your team gets the call.

Before you submit

1. Confirm which kind of number you have, and that the new service can take it.
2. Get your current provider's details exactly as they hold them: account number, account holder, service address and any account PIN.
3. Ask your current provider about porting fees, final bills and any contract you're still in.
4. Check whether anything else runs on that line, such as a security alarm, and ask its provider before the line changes.
5. Pick a switchover window when you can be reached, such as a quiet weekday rather than the Saturday with eight dogs booked.
6. Count the people who need to answer, and check how the new plan prices them.
7. Keep the old service active, and only change where the number is published once the port completes.

Keep reading

• Who should answer the phone while you are grooming?
• What should you text a grooming client, and when?
• Set up Seglo Phone
• See Seglo for pet grooming