There are several answers to this but the ultimate answer is
“If they won’t do it, just use someone else.”

First of all, it’s not like there are vhs toll free numbers versus beta toll free numbers. A toll free number is really a toll free number. You may run into some really strange (yes, that’s a polite way of saying stupid) answers at different phone companies. But contrary to what many people believe, just because someone works at a big phone company doesn’t make what they say correct, any more than what a cashier at Walmart says is always correct.

There just are no incompatible toll free numbers. Any toll free number can be transferred to any phone company and can be pointed to any local number within North America. I admit that some phone companies (especially local ones) create self imposed restrictions. I’ve even had reps try to tell it was a law that they couldn’t do something. But that honestly is pure bologne.

What happens is that phone company representatives don’t want to say anything that makes them look bad or stupid so they try to make things sound valid, and they don’t want to say that they can’t do something. So they say it simply can’t be done. Otherwise you would think poorly of them if they told you the truth, that they don’t know how to do it or they just don’t allow it.

Local phone companies tend to be the worst at this, especially voip companies. They seem willing to say anything at all. I think it’s just because they have very little training on what for them are unusual things like this. So they just repeat what they heard someone else say once even though it was for a different situation and is completely wrong.

The short answer which I probably should have said up front is just that if they don’t want to do it, you can and probably should just use a different company.

You don’t need to use the same company that provides the physical lines to get the calls to the physical lines any more than your callers have to have the phone company to be able to call you. That would be stupid. Anyone can call you no matter what phone company they use, and any phone company can send toll free calls to your phone line no matter what phone company you get the physical lines from.

Your local company is often more difficult to deal with, more expensive, and imposes a lot more restrictions than more competitive long distance carriers. There is honestly NO real advantage to using your local phone company and several major disadvantages to using them.

So the bottom line is just if they won’t do it, use someone else.

Bill

PNG uses agents and doesn’t sign people up directly so they don’t have a very prominent website for sales. And since you have to use a paper form to transfer the number anyway I combined the PNG activation form and the transfer form in one to make it easier.

I have also worked out the process with a couple people to activate numbers much faster too. It usually takes two days with the people I go through instead of two weeks with the regular people. And it’s much easier to follow up with the people I know than to try to track things down in the main company.

The same is all pretty much true for Opex too. That’s why we use those as our defaults.

Bill