Verizon was happy to port my phone from Cablevision. Not a problem they said, it will port over immediately when your Fios installation is complete. Well, I couldn’t argue with that. And honestly, it did port over once the installer activated the line. There was just one small problem… Don’t try calling me if you use Optimum Voice. A few days after our install everything appeared fine. Verizon’s Fios phone service is very plain-vanilla. There is no online management of call-forwarding, voicemail, etc. Imagine my surprise when I get an email alert that there is a new voicemail on Optimum Voice. How are people leaving me voicemails on Optimum? Maybe it takes them a day or two to clear out their systems. Well, its been ten days, except instead of leaving us voicemails, Optimum Voice users are now getting “The number you have dialed is no longer in service”. Excellent…. I am dreading the upcoming calls to Verizon and Cablevision. I’ve been caught in this game before… I call Verizon first and they confirm my suspicions. They’ve successfully ported the line, if the previous provider hasn’t released it internally, there’s nothing we can do. I agree with them. I call Cablevision who gets very hostile:

“Hi, I’ve recently switched from Optimum Voice to Verizon Fios, but there is a problem with the transfer of my line”
“Sir, I’m showing that your account has been closed, if you are having phone trouble, please contact your current provider”
“No, you don’t understand, they were able to port the line. In fact if you were to try and call me from anywhere in the US or the WORLD I will answer. But if you call me from your phone, right now, it won’t work.” (I assumed Cablevision using Optimum Voice in the call centers, my bluff went uncalled)
“Sir, I’ve never heard of this before, the account was canceled on 7/16 and there is no way we can troubleshoot a line we don’t own.”

At this point, I want to reach through the phone and strangle her.

“Can we please get technical confirmation of the problem as I’m describing it to you?”
“Sure sir, let place you on hold and see if I can get someone on the line”

At this point, a gruff technician takes over the call, we’ll call him Maxwell. Maxwell says “Yeah, I see this all the time, you have to call us to release the line from our switch”. “Great, how long does that take?” “24-48 hours”… “OK, well, start that process now please”.

This all leads back to the obvious bad blood between Verizon and Cablevision. They will due whatever it takes to make things more complicated and costly for each other and the consumer is the one who pays the price. I’ll let you know when my new phone is 100% ported, I’m not holding my breath on the 48 hour estimate…