[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.