I don Port enter hot pot ooo

Did I hear you call me a Porter? You are on point! Whether you mean it as a term for someone who has sent PORT to 3232 for Mobile Number Portability, MNP, or even as your regular hotel/hostel Porter whose job
is to be present at the entrance of a building in order to help visitors, you are on point. In a way, I am. I have been there, made all the possible Porting mistakes there are to make and I can help others avoid them. Again, if you are a staunch feminist, feel free to aptly call me a Porteress and if you are a lawyer, you can legally call me a Portee where NCC is seen as the Porter.

Wondering why I'm going round in circles? The Porting experience sure did take me round in circles. It wasn't exactly a smooth one for me.As soon as I made up my mind I have had it with my Service Provider's unsatisfactory internet services, I filled the online MNP form, received a code almost immediately. And, code-in-phone, I headed to Etisalat Experience Centre to port-in to its network. An experience at the Experience Centre almost reduced me to a tear or two.

I got to the Experience Centre, heartbroken, and at the verge of a breakup with my service provider. I was welcomed by Tessy, * not real name*, an MNP care provider.I had switched off my phone earlier so I don't take out my frustration on some innocent caller, and when she asked for the code that was sent to me, I handed my phone to her to switch on. It's a Verizon-branded phone and the logo comes up after its switched on.

She got the code out, forwarded my Porting request to the appropriate centre, then assured me she will call me as soon as my porting request goes through, which could be in an hour or two, to give me further directives on how to activate the new SIM she gave me. My face lighted up in a smile. In that kind of mood I was in, every little kind gesture meant a lot. I thanked her, left and started counting the hours.

Lets start from the beginning. I've had my mobile number for as long as my service provider has been around, so taking the bold step at Porting was a terribly emotional one for me even though I knew I still get to retain my number. I felt I was jilting a friend, though, one who has been terribly nasty to me, lately,in more ways than one. But that didn't cut down on the feeling of betrayal I had. Breaking an over-ten-year-old relationship is definitely no mean feat and I admitted Judas was way more braver than me.

I was angry, angry that, first, though my service provider says 'BIS is Unlimited' all I ever really got was 3Gb Internet data. I had no issue with that deception as long as it lasted me the whole month. Then came the month of April, the month they chose to play me for a fool. I made my subscription on the 28th of March, downloaded a few songs, less than 600Mb of my supposed 3Gb Internet data, and 13days into my subscription, on the 10th of April, it expired like magic.

I took a chill-pill after I asked around and learnt that the Internet data has been reduced from 3Gb to 1Gb, without an advertisement to that effect, a text message, not even a thing on my self-care portal. I had some loose change with me, so I resubscribed on the 15th of April, after five days off the internet to contemplate.

This time around, I was more careful, I told myself, 'no more downloads, no third party application usage, infact, no heavy internet usage'. But the romance wasn't just meant to last.

I had to re-install some applications like Facebook, Twitter and BBM that I wiped off when my media card crashed and that took a toll on my Internet data. Five days into my new subscription, I had used up 526Mb! My biggest challenge was how 474Mb was going to tide me over the remaining 25days.

I was further forced to reduce my internet usage to the barest minimum. But by 4th May, my subscription had expired again and I have had just enough I called the customer care who got the twisted message that I called to listen to their jingles, adverts and music. For about an hour, they kept me entertained? Maybe to get me pissed off enough to hang up but I had ordered a hundred yards of the garment of patience and I had it on!

Finally, a customer care provider answered and I asked her what games they are playing with my subscription. She went on and on to enlighten me too late about how their Internet data has been reduced from 3Gb to 1Gb and assured me it could still last me the whole month even when, judging from my complaint, it was supposed to be obvious to her that it never lasted me so much as 20days for two consecutive months. I told her this then added that if there were people my age who use 1Gb of internet data for 30days, then I wouldn't want to know them!

I never expected an apology from her and I got none so I asked her the major question that was gnawing at me. Who used up the last Mb I had before my subscription expired? I had well over 20Mb before I slept on the 3rd, I woke up the next morning with my internet still connected after everyone had left the house,did nothing on my phone because I was busy with my morning chores. Next time I checked my phone, I was greeted with a message telling me about the expiration of my subscription. She never gave me an answer to that question. Guess she left that for the gods to answer because there was no way she was going to convince me that it was from my village. Villagers and internet? Tsk tsk!

Her sixth sense must have told her I have heard about MNP. After a few more lectures on how 1Gb could last me a month, she asked what I was going to do next, maybe expecting to hear, 'PORT,' so she could convince me to stay back, or even the word 'resubscribe,' so they could take me for more bumpy rides. I simply told her, 'never mind', thanked her for her time and hung up.

The darling Service Provider of yesterday has become the horror of today. This was my first love; my first Service Provider. I had always boasted to friends that no Service Provider in Nigeria can surpass mine and on a scale of good and bad, it has been more good to me than bad, judging from the complains I hear about the other Service Providers. I couldn't have asked for a better Service Provider, but when it set out to be a kill-joy, it did so without a backward glance or a smidgen of conscience and with as much passion as when it was sane, leaving me to choose if I want to sink or sail. I chose the SAKA way! Two minutes later, I filled the online MNP form.

Now that you know the beginning, lets move to the middle and then the end.Two hours came, but Tessy's call didn't. After six hours of waiting in vain for Tessy's call, I slept off. I woke up an hour later and checked my phone only to see that a Porting-error message from NCC was sent to me 30mins earlier at 4:30pm asking me to contact my new service provider. Meanwhile Etisalat Experience Centres close by 5pm. End of Porting Day 1.

Next day, I went back to show Tessy the Porting-error message and asked what could be possibly wrong. She couldn't put a hand on the problem even after consulting her oga-at-the-top. All she knew was that she had to send two different codes when she couldn't trace the form I filled online. And that was all! She got me a new code, resent the request and promised to call me again before the end of that day. But who sai?

That night, with my PC, I tweeted at their twitter account, @0809ja_support , for help. They responded swiftly, followed me back and asked that I send my details through Direct Message for checks. I sent my details but they had gone offline by the time I did. End of Porting Day 2.

Next morning, I got a call, not from Tessy, but from Mike, the online customer care provider. He apologized for responding late, ran a check on my Porting status, rectified whatever the problem was and asked me to go back to the Experience centre for my new SIM activation.

New SIM in hand, I set off, to give Tessy a little lecture on efficiency and to tell her how Mike did in 10 minutes what she couldn't do in two days.I got there, scanned the office for her but didn't see her. I took a deep breath, counted to ten and looked around again, and that was when my eyes rested on her; face to wall and using a notebook computer. Obviously in my anger, I couldn't recognize her from the backview. I walked up to her and coincidentally she was working on my form. My anger dissipated. She made a joke about how my old service provider doesn't want to let go of me by deactivating my account. We laughed about it.

I got a message to insert my new SIM which she did on her phone and activated it. She tried calling it, but the old SIM on my phone got the call instead. I sighed. This was going to be one long battle. The implication was that I would be able to make calls on my new SIM but not receive until the old SIM is deactivated. I gave her N500 card to recharge on my new SIM, thanked her and left. I never knew that wasn't going to be the end of the Porting headache. But that is a story worth waiting for!