Hey what's up everybody! Today I'm going
to be showing you how to port your phone
number to Google Voice. After clicking
the link in the description below you'll
be taken to this page where you can port
or transfer your personal number to
Google Voice. There's a couple different
options for doing so. We're interested in
option number one so click on that and
you'll see here that you can check your
porting status on this page. Go ahead and
click on that. After entering your phone
number hit the check box and you'll be
told that you can or cannot. In this case
we can. So there's a couple different
things to know before porting your
number to Google Voice. The first is that
it cost 20 bucks to do so which I feel
is very cheap for something of such
great value. The next thing and this one
kind of scared me, it says your mobile
service plan will be terminated when you
port your number to Google Voice. So this
you have to be careful with. I was a
little worried because I had a family
plan and I wasn't sure if the whole
family plan would be discontinued or not.
The case is that they only removed my
number from the family plan so you don't
have to worry about anything like that,
and it wasn't under contract so there
was no early termination fees. This third
point here says that you will not be
able to receive calls to your mobile
number while you are doing the porting
process and until you complete two
additional steps. The first one is you
have to set up a new phone number. This
is going to be the number that your
porting forwards to. So practically
what this looks like is going to your
cell phone provider, in my case it's AT&T,
and asking them for another phone number
once your original number is removed
from your account. Once you do that you
can forward your Google Voice number to
your new phone number and you'll be set
up and good to go.
Number four Google says you might not be
able to receive text messages for up to
three business days after the porting
process. I did not see this happen to me.
I immediately saw the text messages
coming through right after the porting
was complete. Moving right along, if you
already have a Google Voice number which
you probably do it says that that's
going to be replaced by the number
you're porting. That makes sense and you
also have the option of purchasing your
old Google Voice number for another
twenty dollar fee. Finally here you just
have to click this box that says you
understand the risks associated with
porting your number. Honestly there
really aren't that many risks so go
ahead and click that box and do the
phone verification on the next screen.
The phone verification step is simply
Google trying to
verify that you own the phone number. So
what Google's gonna do is call your cell
phone and you're gonna have to type in
the number that they present you. In my
case I had to type in 65 on the keypad
of my phone. As soon as that's complete
and Google verifies that you're the
owner of that cell phone number you'll
be taken to the account information page
and this is where you're going to input
all of your information from your
current carrier. In my case AT&T is my
carrier, and you just have to enter your
account number, first name, last name,
billing address, all that stuff and any
pin associated with that account, so
that way what Google's gonna do is
actually go into your account on your
behalf and remove that number, probably
in an automated manner. And then once you
have all that information inputted
correctly you'll see this final page and
you'll make the payment the $20 to do
the porting. That takes a couple seconds
as you can see on the screen here, and
once you do that you are actually good
to go. You have initiated the Google
Voice porting process, and for me this
whole process took exactly 24 hours.
Actually it was 24 hours and one minute. I
initiated the process on a Friday at
9:38 p.m. and it was finished and
complete on Saturday at 9:39 p.m. So it
was really quick. Now if anybody's
interested in why you would ever want to
port your phone number to Google Voice
let me know in the comments below. I
specifically have done this because I
wanted to keep my cell phone number
which I've had for well over 10 years
now and use it overseas when I'm
traveling. That's just one of the many
benefits of Google Voice as long as you
have a internet connection or some type
of data connection and whether that's
through your cell phone service provider
a local SIM card or just on Wi-Fi you
can use your cell phone number on your
phone, on your computer, on your tablet,
whatever. So let me know in the comments
below if you have any questions. Thank
you guys for listening! I will see you
guys next time.
