How to get your non-mobile phone number to Google Voice

Google has finally allowed number porting! I've been waiting for this feature since it was GrandCentral! What's unfortunate is that you only can port mobile numbers, which have higher porting priority than home phone numbers. Mobile numbers can usually be ported in under 24 hours, while I've experienced landlines taking over 3 weeks to fully port (landline to landline)! Therefore there is much reason why Google would offer the initial porting service with only mobile phones.

Now then.. how do we get a non-mobile phone number ported to Google Voice? With a bit of work we can use a middle-carrier! I've frequently used T-Mobile burners (pre-paid sim cards) to do number porting, especially when the carrier that holds the previous number is slow or doesn't want to give up the number. Prepaid sim cards from t-mobile.com are only $8 each with shipping, or you can get them in a store for $10. I had ordered two sims online, but to activate a sim card you need to have a t-mobile phone or an unlocked GSM phone (I was out of luck having Verizon). Not having either I simply went into a store and had them activate a preapaid sim right on the spot. The activation was free, but I had to pay $10 in calling credit in addition to the sim card. For $20 I walked out of the t-mobile store with a prepaid sim card AND they were able to start the porting process (which is free on T-Mobile, btw). I simply gave them the previous phone number, account number, name on the account and billing address and they started the 24-48 hour porting process.

Once the number was fully ported to t-mobile I instantly was able to see the number on Google Voice and started GV's porting process. I never had to put the T-Mobile sim card in a phone (although you'd probably want to setup a voicemail or call forwarding while the number gets ported to Google Voice). For a grand total of $40 my non-mobile number was ported to Google Voice! If you have an unlocked GSM phone it's only $28!


Have you found any cheaper ways or carriers to get your number ported? Let me know!