Bizarre Anomaly After Porting Number from Wind to Chatr

[Chatr.iPhoneTO]

A friend passed on her older-model iPhone to me (a 3G circa 2008), so I switched providers last week (Apr 7, 2012) from Wind to Chatr, as iPhone service is not possible on Wind. I did this at the Chatr kiosk in the Dufferin Mall, as I wanted a live rep to help me rather than attempt it over the phone. They were very efficient and knowledgable, and I received a text notice from Chatr of the successful number porting within the hour, thus never needed to use the temporary number they provided.

All has been great except for one major thing: I have not been able to receive text messages from anyone who has their phone on a Wind account -- they receive my texts fine, they can call me and I can call them, the problem is only with their texts to me. Unfortunately, a majority of my friends (and clients) are on Wind.

I have a friend with an Android phone on Chatr who doesn't have this problem, so I wondered if it was my new (used) iPhone, or perhaps something else. I asked a friend with a Wind phone to join me on a return visit to the Dufferin Chatr kiosk, where we demonstrated how I could send him a text but could not receive his return text. The Chatr rep first shut down my iPhone, removed the SIM card and waited, reinstalled the card and rebooted the phone. We repeated the test with no difference.

The Chatr rep then replaced my SIM card with her active store SIM, and we repeated the test, which this time had no problems, so we knew the iPhone wasn't the problem. The rep then suggested that my SIM card could be faulty, so replaced it with a new one, but upon repeating the test I STILL couldn't receive Wind texts. The rep now determined that it's one of those weird anomalies from porting my Wind number, and suggested that changing my phone number should fix the problem.

While I'm glad that the problem has been isolated and my phone is fine, I would find changing my longstanding number to be a real pain; not to mention, I think the onus is on Chatr (re: Rogers) to fix this glitch in their network rather than inconvenience me with this "solution"; I've got endless business cards and other correspondence out there with my current old number, so there could be repercussions for me doing this change. Problem is, nobody else (to my knowledge) is offering anything even close to an unlimited talk/text plan with data for $45/month.

Anyone else experience anything similar; any other suggestions?

[computergeek541]

That's not that bizarre. It's not just Wind or Chatr either. It's quite common to have text messaging problems after porting, ESPECIALLY text mesages originating from the old carrier. Most people don't have these problems but it shouldn't be a huge surprise when it comes to text messaging. Many times, this problem resolves itself automatically over time. There have been many example on this site where people's services would work fine with the exception of text messaging from the old carrier until the start of the next billing cycle of the old provider.

I had a problem with Wind before when I ported out to another company (have since gone back to Wind) where the number got ported out but Wind somehow forgot to close the phone line/account out, even though service was fully transfered to Rogers at that time. Wind service continued to work, but despite Wind assuring me that porting was complete to Rogers and that I wouldnt' be charged any longer for Wind services, they kept the line active and continued to bill me until I complained about it. Making calls from the Wind phone (which was supposed to be cancelled at time of port out) to my phone number rang on the proper Rogers phone but text messages from that Wind phone to my phone number got delivered to my same Wind phone. I suspect that all text message from any Wind customer were also incorrectly staying within the Wind network but at that time, I just didn't care about that part because this was 1 month after Toronto launch and quite honestly, back then almost no one was using Wind. The entire time, the phone number porting databases clearly listed my phone no longer being with Wind.

Check if your Wind phone actually still works. Talk to Chatr and Wind about it but be warned - expect a lot of run-around and lots of finger pointing by those 2 companies at each other.

[rockjock]

A friend passed on her older-model iPhone to me (a 3G circa 2008), so I switched providers last week (Apr 7, 2012) from Wind to Chatr, as iPhone service is not possible on Wind. I did this at the Chatr kiosk in the Dufferin Mall, as I wanted a live rep to help me rather than attempt it over the phone. They were very efficient and knowledgable, and I received a text notice from Chatr of the successful number porting within the hour, thus never needed to use the temporary number they provided.

All has been great except for one major thing: I have not been able to receive text messages from anyone who has their phone on a Wind account -- they receive my texts fine, they can call me and I can call them, the problem is only with their texts to me. Unfortunately, a majority of my friends (and clients) are on Wind.

I have a friend with an Android phone on Chatr who doesn't have this problem, so I wondered if it was my new (used) iPhone, or perhaps something else. I asked a friend with a Wind phone to join me on a return visit to the Dufferin Chatr kiosk, where we demonstrated how I could send him a text but could not receive his return text. The Chatr rep first shut down my iPhone, removed the SIM card and waited, reinstalled the card and rebooted the phone. We repeated the test with no difference.

The Chatr rep then replaced my SIM card with her active store SIM, and we repeated the test, which this time had no problems, so we knew the iPhone wasn't the problem. The rep then suggested that my SIM card could be faulty, so replaced it with a new one, but upon repeating the test I STILL couldn't receive Wind texts. The rep now determined that it's one of those weird anomalies from porting my Wind number, and suggested that changing my phone number should fix the problem.

While I'm glad that the problem has been isolated and my phone is fine, I would find changing my longstanding number to be a real pain; not to mention, I think the onus is on Chatr (re: Rogers) to fix this glitch in their network rather than inconvenience me with this "solution"; I've got endless business cards and other correspondence out there with my current old number, so there could be repercussions for me doing this change. Problem is, nobody else (to my knowledge) is offering anything even close to an unlimited talk/text plan with data for $45/month.

Anyone else experience anything similar; any other suggestions?

A friend of mine had the exact same issue a while back. It turned out that Wind did not fully release the number. Basically as I understood it, her wind line was still receiving txts or was intercepting txts. It was sorted when she insisted they verify the port did go through correctly. A day later it was solved.

Good luck IF you must call wind use the French option to speak to someone competent.

[Chatr.iPhoneTO]

That's EXACTLY what happened: they blamed Wind and told me to call them and have it out; then of course Wind insisted that it's not their problem, deal with my new carrier. As you also suggest, I will wait until my first billing cycle rolls around and see if it fixes itself.
I've swapped cellular carriers and ported my number many times before, but that was before the advent of texting. Here's hoping it just sorts itself out (I will post what finally happens either way).