United Kingdom porting guide

Hamzah Jamil

Updated

  Details Additional information
Country code +44  
Portability coverage
  • Geographic
  • National
  • Toll-free
  • Mobile
 
Carrier coverage

Geographic: 

  • Gamma Telecom
  • Global Crossing / Level 3
  • Magrathea
  • Mintaka
  • Simwood
  • Telephony Services / AQL Wholesale
  • Verizon
  • Vodafone
  • Virgin Media
  • KCOM
  • COLT
  • BT

National and toll-free: 

  • BT
  • Colt
  • Gamma Telecom
  • Mintaka
  • Magrathea
  • Simwood
  • Vodafone
  • Virgin Media

Mobile:

  • All carriers
In the UK, carriers are required to have a portability agreement to perform operations with each other. The agreements are per number type.
Documentation required by Bandwidth
  • Letter of Authorization (LOA)
  • Recent invoice (dated within the last three months)

The UK LOA template is provided by the regulator and therefore can't be altered.

For UK mobile, there's a separate LOA template.

Documentation templates

 

Porting lead time 22 business days  
Porting time window 10 AM to 12 PM  
Port activation timeline

The porting activation window is 10 AM to 12 PM for geographic, national, and toll-free numbers. 

 

Note: For mobile numbers, the routing can take an additional day to update. An update is provided.

  1. In the first 30 minutes, the port is being triggered with the losing carrier.
  2. The carrier then has 1 hour after the allotted time to perform tests on their side and provide us an update that the routing has completed.
  3. The last 30 minutes is our window (after receiving confirmation of the routing completion notice), to perform tests on our end and if successful, we mark the request completed.
Porting outside of business hours Porting outside of business hours is not generally supported by the carriers. A manual request has to be presented to the losing carrier to check if they have resources available to support.  
Downtime expectations Downtime is expected during the routing switch within the porting window.  
Possible rejections
  • Incorrect postcode
  • Incorrect number configuration
  • Insufficient lead time
  • The main billing number incorrect
  • Associated lines

 

Porting holidays
  • New Year’s Day
  • Good Friday
  • Easter Monday
  • Early May Bank Holiday
  • Spring Bank Holiday
  • Summer Bank Holiday
  • Christmas Day
  • Boxing Day
A porting freeze is implemented during the Christmas period. It changes every year and can differ per carrier.

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