The number on your van is worth more than the van.
That sounds dramatic until you remember every business card, every Google Business listing, every old job site sign, every "I had Bobby out two years ago" referral text — they all dial the same ten digits. Lose those digits and you lose the customer base.
Which is why I'm constantly surprised how many tradies don't actually own their phone number. The number is registered to a virtual receptionist service or to whatever telco the business setup company used in 2019. When the relationship ends, the number ends with it.
This post is the one I wish I'd read before signing my first business phone contract. What ownership means, the 3-day porting reality, and how to switch providers without the silent-failover horror stories.
What "owning" your number means
In Australia, every business or mobile number is registered to an account holder at a telco — Telstra, Optus, TPG, More, Aussie Broadband, Pivotel. You can move the number between telcos using a process called Local Number Portability (LNP), which the ACMA mandated all carriers support back in 2003. So far so good.
The catch is whose account the number sits on. If the account holder is "ABC Virtual Receptionists Pty Ltd", that company technically owns it. They're obliged to release it on request, but in practice:
- They take 30-60 days to respond to a port request
- They charge a "release fee" (technically illegal under TIO guidelines but common; chase via the TIO if needed)
- They've sometimes already on-sold the number to a downstream provider, adding another step
A sparkie in Footscray rang me last month who'd been with the same answering service for six years. When he tried to leave, the answering service quoted him $850 to "release" the number. He'd put it on every invoice, every truck, every magnet on every fridge in the western suburbs. He paid the $850.
The fix is to make sure the account is in your name, with your ABN, on your business credit card. Doesn't matter which telco — you can port between them later. What matters is that the line item on the bill says your trading name, not someone else's.
How to check who actually owns your number right now
This takes five minutes. Go look at your most recent business phone bill (the actual bill, not a receipt from a third-party service).
- The bill should be from a carrier (Telstra, Optus, TPG, More) or from a clear reseller (Aussie Broadband, Vodafone)
- It should be addressed to your business
- The number should be listed under your account
If the bill comes from a "virtual office" or "answering service" company, your number is on their account. You don't own it. Get this fixed before anything else.
To fix it: call the company, ask for a port-out authorisation, then port the number to your own carrier account. Pre-warning: most of them will try to "save" you by offering discounts. The discounts go away the moment you stop paying attention.
The 3-day porting reality
Right. You've decided to switch carriers. Maybe Telstra to More for the price difference, maybe Optus to Aussie Broadband for the support. Whatever the reason.
Here's what actually happens during the port, in chronological order:
Day -7 to -1. You sign up with the new carrier. They send you a porting form (ACMA-mandated layout). You fill it in with the exact account details from your existing carrier. Wrong middle initial, wrong abbreviation, wrong anything and the port rejects.
Day 0 (port submission). New carrier submits to old carrier. Old carrier has 24 hours to validate the request. About 30% of ports get rejected on day 0 for "account holder mismatch" — usually a typo on the form.
Day 1-2. Carriers schedule the cut-over window. This is normally a 4-hour block, usually overnight. Both carriers get notified.
Day 3 (the cut-over). During the actual cut-over window, your number doesn't ring on either system. This is the part nobody warns you about. ACMA mandates the window be no more than 4 hours but in practice it's often 4-12 hours when something goes sideways. Calls that come in during this window go to a "this number has been disconnected" message. You don't get a missed-call notification because the number isn't yours yet.
If you're a sparkie with a fluctuating roster of jobs, four hours of "this number has been disconnected" can mean six lost customers. Especially because the message sounds like you've gone out of business.
How to minimise the silent failover
Three things you can do that almost nobody does:
1. Schedule the port for a Monday or Tuesday morning. Carriers process more cleanly during business hours when both teams are staffed. Friday afternoon ports often get pushed to Tuesday anyway, and a "this number has been disconnected" message running over a weekend is the worst case.
2. Set up a temporary forwarding number on your existing line BEFORE submitting the port. Most carriers let you do conditional forwarding (when busy / no answer / out of service). Forward to a backup mobile that you carry during the cut-over. Calls during the gap will either ring through to the backup or go to its voicemail. Both better than "disconnected".
3. Update your Google Business profile with a temporary number for the day of the port. Yes, this means callers see a different number. But the alternative is callers who try the GBP-listed number, get the disconnect message, and never try again.
Most importantly: don't believe the carrier when they say "no downtime expected". They're technically correct that the port itself takes minutes. They're being economical about the testing window between when the old line stops ringing and the new one starts.
When NOT to port
A few situations where you should leave the number alone:
- You're moving to a new business name. Set up a new number with the new name. Forward the old to the new for 12 months. People recall numbers by association, and a fresh start sometimes helps.
- Your number is on a 13/1300/1800 service. These work differently from geographic numbers and use a separate porting process. Get specialist advice; the carriers handle these poorly.
- You're between contracts at the old carrier with less than 60 days left. Ride out the contract. Porting mid-contract often triggers exit fees that wipe out any savings from the switch.
What about Sanby and the number?
Briefly, because this isn't a Sanby pitch piece: when you sign up for Sanby we provision an Australian number for you to forward your existing business line into. You keep your own number. We just answer it for you. If you cancel, the forward stops and your number rings through to your phone again, like it always did.
If you do want a brand-new number through us, you can keep that one if you ever leave (we'll release it to whatever carrier you're moving to within 5 business days, no fee). This is the contract clause we wrote because we got burned by it ourselves.
The number on your van is worth more than the van. Treat it that way.
Read the missed-call cost piece for the same logic from the other side: what each of those calls is actually worth.