[Sky Mobile Ireland] Could someone please explain how to port my current mobile number to Sky?

[UserFromIreland]

I'll start by pointing out that all the links and documentation in the Sky website is for Sky UK. Whenever you try to browse these pages from Ireland, you get the following message:

"Sorry, you can’t view this page as you’re currently browsing the ROI version of Sky.com."

I've seen several posts here commeting on how awful Sky Ireland has been so far and their difficulties porting their numbers.

If anyone has been succesful, or if there is any Sky employee here, could you please share in detail how to complete the process of porting my current mobile number in Ireland?

Thank you!

[Irish-Steve]

It's been a huge struggle due to the inept implementation of the Irish site, but as of about 2 hours ago, I have a working phone, but it wasn't easy. I signed up on the 10th, and in theory, my sim was delivered on the 11th, but that was a complete fabrication, it turned up yesterday (18th), I was out all day, so got to it late in the evening, which caused some issues. When I signed up, I had all the porting information available, so it went into the system.

The process I went into was that I logged on to my.sky, and that then gave me the opportunity to activate my sim card, which as far as it went worked, but the bit that didn't work was when I entered the mobile number I was porting, in theory, I should have had a text with a code, SENT TO MY OLD NUMBER, and that didn't work, despite trying several times, with both sims in the phone, which is a fiddle to do, I never got the texts, so at around 2 am, I gave up, the relevant texts I was waiting for all arrived at just after 08:00 this morning, but I have no way to know if that was a Sky issue, or my phone blocking texts, as I have a Do not disturb set between 01:00 and 08:00, they should have got to me before that started, but didn't. At about 08:20, I got another message that the number had been ported, but there are some differences, the old sim showed a number that it was created with before I ported to the previous service, but the new sim shows 'unknown' for the number, but it is working. I also had a couple of messages relating to importing settings to enable mobile data, and it didn't work without WiFi until I'd followed that procedure, with the Sky sim in the phone.

If the system doesn't know about the porting details when you go to activate the sim, I'm not sure how that's going to work out, the text with the number to confirm the port has to be received from the old network, it was generated, but not received quickly enough, it only has a life of 15 minutes, and mine were delayed for over 7 hours, so then useless, but the port did appear to go through, and to be sure, I've checked with the old service to make sure that their account is closed off, which it has been. I did the initial data entry to activate using the laptop via the web app, rather than using the phone, the instructions are not good from Sky, in that they say to do this with the new sim in the phone, but that means the text confirmation can never be received, which is a crazy way to try and do this, they clearly didn't think it through very well.

Hope this helps, if it doesn't you're into the nausea of a huge wait to speak to a real person, and that can be a LONG wait.

[UserFromIreland]

Hey @Irish-Steve, thank you for commenting on my post. I've read your other post too. I'm sorry you had to go through all that mess. I'm just trying to avoid suffering the same, ha.

I'm glad you were able to solve it in the end; it gives me some hope. I ordered the Sky SIM yesterday and I haven't received it yet, but I want to make sure I understand everything I will need to do to port my number.

If you don't mind, I'll bother you with a few questions. I'll highlight them in black.

When I attempt to go through the Activation workflow, it asks for the Activation code, which I don't have yet. Once I have it and continue on, at which point does it offer to port the old number?

From you comments, I get that I should keep my old SIM in my phone during the entire activation process so that I can receive the SMS, and only after the activation is completed then I should switch to the Sky SIM. Is that correct?

Do I need to gather any info to port my old number? I've read about the PAC, but it seems that's only for UK.

Thanks!

[Irish-Steve]

The activation code is on a label in the envelope/wrapper that the sim card comes in, 6 characters, and the port details are asked for after that stage, the best suggestions seems to be to keep the old service sim in the phone while you go through the activation on a laptop, that should get the confirmation code by text, and after that has arrived, and you've got the code, I would suggest write it down before powering down, and swapping the sim, and then power up, in theory, there are other text messages relating to this, it should tell you the sim native number, which would be valid if there was no port request, and then it sends a message about ensuring moble data settings are imported, which is relevant, if you don't do that, mobile data won't work if you're out of WiFi coverage, as I discovered when testing by turning the WiFi off. 

The confusion is the timing of when to put the Sky sim in the phone, they imply before starting the process, but that then means you can't receive the text code, I'm not sure how important that is, did you give the Sky reps the relevant information when you signed up, if you did, the port may happen automatically, but the whole process is seemingly fragile at the moment, and it's not clear where the issues are, it may be that Sky reps are having to validate the information at their end, so out of hours may be an issue.

[Irish-Steve]

Missed a bit, the code you get by text needs to be entered in the relevant box, I'm not sure what it then does, as I never got to that stage, but it did activate, that's why I'm saying there's some confusion about the process.

[UserFromIreland]

@Irish-Steve thank you again for taking the time to comment. It's all starting to make more sense now.

One last question. When you say "... port details are asked for after that stage", which details exactly do they ask for? I just want to make sure I have everything ready before I start the process.

I will comment here my experience once I complete the process.

[Irish-Steve]

In my case, they only  asked for the mobile number, but they may ask for more if they didn't get the information on the initial sales call, I gave them the mobile, and I also had the other information they needed for the old service provider, I think it was the UAC, but during activation, it was only the mobile number.

[UserFromIreland]

I have now successfully ported two numbers to Sky ROI. Here's how it went:

After I ordered my first SIM, I could see in my account that it was supposed to be delivered the next day. This didn't happen. It took around a week for the SIM to arrive.

Once it arrived, I started the activation process.

IMPORTANT: at this point, do not insert the new Sky SIM. You will need your previous SIM to receive a validation code through SMS.

When you start the activation process, it first asks you for an Activation Code that comes in the SIM package. Next, it asks you for the mobile number you want to port, the provider, and the account number from that provider. After clicking on Continue, it sends you an SMS to your previous provider's mobile number with a code to confirm you are in position of said mobile number. This is why you need to keep the previous SIM in your phone. Once you type the validation code in the screen and click continue, it will prompt you to configure a few SIM settings and then you'll get a message saying that the porting is in progress and you'll be notified when it's done.

This message that you get contains some lies. It says that you can continue to use the old provider's SIM until it goes out of service, or alternatively you can start using the Sky SIM with the default mobile number and once the porting finishes, the mobile number will change. It claims the porting process will take 1-2 days.

In my case, I chose to keep the old SIM until it went out of service, but after 2 days nothing had happened. I had to contact Sky support team for assistance. The agent said I actually needed to switch to the Sky SIM right away, after which the phone would prompt me to configure a few mobile data settings and then the porting process would finish.

So I inserted the Sky SIM, followed the instructions to configure the mobile data settings and a few minutes later, my old mobile number had been ported.

Once my Sky SIM was fully configured, I ordered a second SIM for my partner. The process was slightly different.

For the second SIM, I had to input the mobile number, provider, and account number before purchasing the SIM. This second SIM did arrive the following day as stated in the tracking screen.

The activation process was the same. First, I had to input the Activation code from the SIM package. Then they sent a Validation code to my partners phone and then I got the same "false" message that the porting was in progress and I could keep using the previous provider until it went out of service.

This time I inserted the Sky SIM right away, configured the mobile data settings and the number was finally ported. 👍

I called my previous provider to make sure the account was closed. They confirmed that after all my numbers were ported, the account was automatically closed.

Thank you @Irish-Steve for your input. It made it easier to understand what to expect from Sky and be prepared.

[Cormac3]

When trying to activate the SIM I'm asked for info, a surname and postcode.

The EirCode does not work it says its the incorrect format.

"Invalid postcode format, please use format eg. AB12 ABC"

I can't get past this page

[Irish-Steve]

It may be the case that the Eircode needs to be entered using all Caps, and with the space between the first 3 characters and the final 4 characters, in theory, it should be capable of parsing the code that's been entered even if it's in lower case without the space in the middle, but a number of apps get this horribly wrong, and won't accept anthing other than the 'official' format, XXX(space)YYYY, and if you're cutting and pasting from a text file that holds useful information like this, make sure there's no leading or trailing spaces, as that can also cause all manner of confusion to some apps, Sky are not alone in having issues with Eircodes, but that's life in Ireland unfortunately.

Hope this helps,

[Denis+OLeary]

Here is my experience of porting my number to Sky mobile Ireland. The whole process took almost three weeks.

       Firstly, I went online to attempt the set everything up. The site failed to generate a PIN/access number. I rang Sky. I was told they were having technical issues. The rep I spoke to told me he would contact me the following day. He didn't contact me. I tried again online. This time I was able to put in my order.

        The following morning, I got an email telling me there were multiple numbers associated with my one. I had one account number and one phone number. What I didn't realise at the time was that I was part of a scheme. I rang Sky. I was told this would be sorted. As soon as I finished the call, I got the same email. I rang again with the same result. I rang the third time and the email came in while I was on the call. Again, I was told this would be sorted but it wasn't.

     I rang again last week. I told the person my problem, again. He told me to change my request to multi line. I told him I couldn't do this because I no longer had the option as the order had gone through. I told him I wanted to cancel the request. He put me through to someone else. She cancelled the original order and said she had put in a new request as a multi line.

      The new SIM card arrived. I gave them a week to have everything in order, i.e. for contacting my existing provider, etc. I tried porting the number after the week, yesterday. I went to Orders and "Transfer your number in the Republic of Ireland". I couldn't get beyond this because the system didn't recognise my email address, even though I had used this email address to log in to the site in the first place.

       I rang agin this morning, around 9, and explained this. I was told to "ring back later". I asked what was meant by "later", an hour, two hours, four hours? I was told at 5. When I rang in the afternoon, I was told Sky had technical issues and there was a problem porting my number. The man in the morning hadn't told me this. He said to wait two days. I said if this wasn't sorted in the two days, I wanted this process to be cancelled. He then said he would check things out and ring me back. I didn't get any call back.

         A few hours later, my number inexplicably stopped working. I inserted the Sky SIM card and lo and behold, my number had been ported. No phone, no text, no email to tell me anything.

I then discovered my data wasn't working, so I had to make yet another phone call. All I had to do was restart my phone but if I had had any communication at all from them I would have probably have been told that.

In all, I must have spoken to twelve people in Sky. It would be sobering had I kept track of the hours of my time all of this has taken. I'm doubting my sanity at this point.