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SIM Card Number Unknown + Number Porting Experience

  • December 10, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 805 views
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Background:

I live on a small island in BC, the closest Koodo retail location is 4+ hour travel away. In the last week of November, I decided to switch over from Public Mobile. I am using my own phone (Oneplus 9 5G), but I ordered a preowned (Galaxy S10+) so I will have a spare.

I have not switched carrier for over 6 years and have never switched within the same network, i.e. Public to Koodo, so I was not clear on what this entailed. I was confused about being assigned a new “temporary” number. I scheduled a callback for December 6 to ask about the number porting process.

December 6: I told the rep I will be porting from Public Mobile. The rep asked me for the phone number to be ported and the Public Mobile account number and then put me on hold, and within a minute, the call ended and I no longer have service. Apparently the they went ahead and ported my number right away, and since it is the same network, the port completed instantly. 

At that time, my Koodo SIM was still in the mail, due to the remoteness of my location it took another 4 days to arrive. I was left without cell service, which caused me significant inconvenience.

December 10: I just got off the phone with another rep, who credited me $9 for the days without service. Honestly, I was hoping for a more understanding gesture for being completely cut off for 4.5 days.  

 

Technical Question:

Call, SMS, MMS, Data are working with both phones. However, I notice in both Oneplus 9 (Settings> Wi-Fi & Network> SIM & Network >SIM 1 >Number) or Galaxy S10+ (Settings> About Phone> Phone Number) the SIM’s phone number is “unknown”

I described this to the Rep from December 10, but was told “everything is working.” I asked for a new SIM card but they said I will have to purchase one with a new number.

It bothers me both phones cannot read the SIM’s number, despite services working OK. I suspect something was not completed during porting as possible cause.

 

 

 

 

Best answer by Timo Tuokkola

It literally makes no difference whatsoever whether the phone can read the phone number from the sim card or not. This information is not used for anything. It's only displayed at all as a matter of minor convenience. Because it doesn't affect functionality whatsoever, this feature doesn't appear to be thoroughly tested by phone manufacturers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes the information comes and goes. If you are able to send and receive voice, sma, mms and data, then everything is provisioned correctly.

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4 replies

Timo Tuokkola
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  • Timo Tuokkola
  • Mobile Master
  • 8824 replies
  • Answer
  • December 10, 2021

It literally makes no difference whatsoever whether the phone can read the phone number from the sim card or not. This information is not used for anything. It's only displayed at all as a matter of minor convenience. Because it doesn't affect functionality whatsoever, this feature doesn't appear to be thoroughly tested by phone manufacturers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes the information comes and goes. If you are able to send and receive voice, sma, mms and data, then everything is provisioned correctly.

That’s what I do: I drink and I know things.
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    rikkster
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  • gabecat
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 2 replies
  • December 11, 2021

With the Outbound Calling Name Display add-on activated, my outgoing CID shows “Unknown”

Do you think it’s in anyway related?

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  • rikkster
  • Mobile Master
  • 6157 replies
  • December 11, 2021

Have you tried restarting your OnePlus 9 5G after porting your phone number?

Other options are to toggle Airplane mode on for about a minute, then turn off.

Is there an option to enter the phone number manually when you tap on Number - Unknown?

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  • gabecat
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 2 replies
  • December 22, 2021

Please excuse the delayed reply.

TL;DR: I was finally able to get both phones to read the SIM card number, fixed caller ID and outgoing call problems. The cause was not on my side or my phones, but most likely improperly provisioned SIM card.

I would like someone from Koodo to read and respond to the report below. I spent a significant amount of time and effort troubleshooting, and went beyond what is expected from a customer to resolve the problem. There needs to be proportionate credit compensation to reflect this.

 

Long Version

After my initial post, I noticed my calls were being rejected by phone numbers with caller ID screening, and my outgoing Caller ID displays as “Unknown” on callees’ phones without call-screening. This occured using both my own OnePlus 9 5G and the pre-owned Galaxy S10+ I got from Koodo.

 

This was a critical problem since it is service-breaking: I could not reach anyone who blocked Unknown or Private Caller IDs.

 

I spoke to customer service on December 12 about this. From their side my outgoing call display was enabled properly with my name and number. They suggested I wait another 72 hours for caller ID to be activated.

I remembered from the days I working with SIP at a small-time VoIP service provider, that “unknown” or “private number” means outgoing CID is explicitly blocked, and not simply caused by lack of Name content in the FROM field. If the latter was the case, my phone number (username part of URI) will be visible to the callee’s phone, instead of displaying Unknown and be rejected by call-screening.

While I was aware I am not dealing with some SIP URI implementation in 2006, I was still suspicious there is some action required besides simply waiting another three days for outgoing caller-ID to activate.

 

Based on this, I requested for my ticket to be escalated, I was promised a call back from tech support within 72 hours. I did not receive any follow-up as of December 22.


After the December 12 conversation with customer service, I made the 4+ hour travel to a Koodo retail location on the same day and ask for a replacement SIM card. Using the new SIM card on a store test phone, outgoing CID displayed correctly, and calls were accepted by callees with caller ID screening.

 

However, with the new SIM card in my phones, the SIM’s phone number displayed correctly, but I my outgoing CID still shows “Unknown.”

I fixed this in the Android Caller app by going to Settings > Calling Accounts > More Feature > Caller ID and call waiting. The phone displayed “reading settings” after this step, indicating it was reading data from either the SIM card or the network. I then tap “Caller ID” and in the pop-up menu, I saw Caller ID was set to “Network Default” (the other options are “Hide” and “Show number”). After this, outgoing Caller ID displayed correctly. Calls to call-screened callee terminated successfully and are no longer blocked.

 

I followed the same procedure on the Galaxy S10+ with the same result.

 

It is important to note that I did not know about or touch any of the above settings in the Caller app until that day. Therefore, I argue the first SIM I received was not provisioned properly, as a result both of my phones were unable to read the SIM’s phone number and unable to display out-going caller ID.

 

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    rikkster
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