Phone Lock will lock your phone to a particular MAC address (SIP?), or IMEI? (Cellular). Customer service will not be able to unlock the number. You must go to the control panel, and follow the instructions to unlock your phone. This is designed to give you a number of opportunities to prevent you from losing your telephone number. By locking the phone number to the current device, it assures that no one can simply port your number away with a simple call. And since 2FA is required on all accounts, a bad actor can’t even get int the control panel without your intervention.
So how does phone locking works. You log into the control panel. If you are logging in with a new device, you must provide your 2FA code. A bad actor will not have this code, and the system will never send a random message to authenticate your account with 2FA. If you receive an authentication message, or failed authentication message, you should change your password as this is a bad actor that knows your credentials.
The next step is to unlock the number you wish to port. You would go to the number’s control panel, and flip the locked switch from on to off. If you are trying to unlock your cellular line, you would receive an SMS stating than a number unlock request was made for this line, and to reply with ALLOW to allow the number to be unlocked. If you didn’t want this – to reply with DENY. If you didn’t authorized this, you would want to change your credentials, and contact support as someone bypassed your 2FA protection. If you typed DENY, then you will not be able to unlock your number for 24 hours. If you ignore the message, then the person sending the request must wait 15 minutes before trying again.
If the unlock request is for a SIP phone, you will still receive the SMS as an option, but yo could use voice calls. The system will call you, and ask you to enter a random number that the system discloses to you. You will then press 1 to unlock your number. Pressing 2 will lock the phone out from sending anymore requests for 24 hours.
Once the number is unlocked, you would need to setup a PIN. This is the PIN you would provide to the company you wish to switch too. Your account number will be your primary telephone number (no dashes). If you wish to lock the number again, you can select the number lock to on, and it will be that simple. This is a security feature to make it much harder for a bad actor to get your number. As you can see, much easier to lock your phone number, than to unlock your number. When you port a number to PCS1, the number will automatically get locked to the device once you assign it.