Migrating to new carrier + onsite pbx

FreePBX Installation / Upgrade
1

We want to move over to an onsite PBX and get away from Vonage Hosted. We have a Asterisk Server running FreePBX.

We are porting our numbers over to a new a carrier, but what is a good was of syncing the number porting with the deployment of the PBX?

As I understand it, the port will not be a instant switch over; numbers will port over a period of minutes or hours. Also, the FOC date doesn’t provide much wiggle room and will fall within our company’s business hours. Once the numbers port, all our office phones currently configured for Vonage need to be wiped and setup with the new configuration. After which all the lines need to be tested extensively.

I spoke with Vonage about getting temporary numbers to which we could forward the newly ported primary numbers. This would allow us to keep our phones on Vonage PBX (after the port) until we have a weekend to deploy the server, but the price of ordering temporary numbers is pretty steep for just a few days.

I’m all out of ideas. Any suggestions?

2

Set up your service account with the new provider and set up the inbound routes AS IF they were already ported. Everything needs to be ready to go - all the IVRs, all the audio, all the extensions, everything. Having the server sitting, waiting for incoming calls, isn’t going to effect your Vonage connections at all.

Once the Vonage numbers port, your phones will go dead and incoming calls will be directed to your Asterisk server. I suggest picking up a cheap SIP phone and making it the “group phone” until you get the newly configured old phones away from Vonage and onto the Asterisk server.

When the numbers port, they will be directed away from your Vonage phones to the Asterisk server. From there, you’ll need to have a way to move the actual instruments from the old service to the Asterisk server. The method for deployment will depend on what instruments you are selecting for the new system. If you are switching the existing instruments, you should pre-deploy the phone configs someplace so you can deploy the new config and run a program to reboot the phones and use the new config.

3

We did the same thing as you, like this:

  1. Installed PBX,
  2. mostly configured (working inbound/outbound routes) new service with new number. Include inbound DID for vonage number.
  3. Forwarded vonage# to new pbx number via vonage webpage.
  4. Submit port request with new provider.
  5. Un-forwared the day after the port date to check to see if new provider has number.
  6. Done