Cloud phone systems

Keep your number: porting explained

The biggest reason businesses stay on a bad phone system is fear of losing their number. Here’s what porting actually involves, and what can slow it down.

Comstel ICT · Cloud phone systems · August 2026

It’s the objection we hear most, and the one with the least behind it. Your number moves with you, and your old service keeps working until the moment it doesn’t need to.

• 0Minutes of missed calls at cutover
• 5–15Business days, running in parallel

Porting runs alongside your existing service. Nothing is switched off until the new system is live and tested.

How it works

1. We check the numberSome numbers can’t port — certain 13/1300 arrangements, or services bundled oddly by a previous provider. We confirm before anything is committed.
2. You sign one formA Letter of Authority lets us request the number from your current carrier. That’s your entire administrative involvement.
3. Handsets arrive pre-configuredPlugged in and tested on your network while the old system is still running. Your team is trained before cutover, not after.
4. We cut over, you keep answeringThe number switches to the new system. The old service disconnects afterwards, not before.

What can slow it down

Both are why we check first and lodge the paperwork ourselves rather than handing you a form and hoping.

What you can port

• Standard landline numbers, in most cases
• 1300 and 13 numbers, subject to the arrangement they sit under
• Multiple numbers together, so a whole office moves at once

You can also keep a number and change nothing else about how it behaves — same greeting, same routing, same people answering.

What changes once it’s moved

The number is the same. Everything around it gets easier: a softphone app that puts your business line on a mobile and laptop, adding an extension in minutes rather than weeks, and no PBX on the premises to maintain.