How can I get voice on my Virgin Mobile Blackberry?

July 23, 2010 5:17 PM

My Virgin Mobile Blackberry sends texts, surfs the web, sends and receives e-mail wonderfully. However, whenever I try to make a call to any number, I get the message "The number you have tried to dial is temporarily out of service."

I have spent far too long with Virgin tech support, provisioning and provisioning and pulling the battery. We entered the MSID on the CDMA Programming Screen.

Yet no matter what number I call, I get the message "The number you have tried to dial is temporarily out of service."

Virgin has supposedly escalated this to the higher ups, who are supposed to contact me when they have figured out the problem, but that "could be 24 to 72 hours."

I know this is a long shot, but does anyone have any idea what is causing this?

Thanks in advance.

posted by 4ster to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Response by poster: Also, the phone has been activated after a port for 6-7 hours.
posted by 4ster at 5:21 PM on July 23, 2010

Response by poster: And, if you dial my BB number, you get the same "The number you have tried to dial is temporarily out of service" message.
posted by 4ster at 5:24 PM on July 23, 2010

Are you calling from the same place (same tower)? That's the same message you'll sometimes get when your cell tower is at capacity or is messed up somehow handling voice calls. If it is that, then Virgin has to tell Sprint to go out and fix their tower. Depending on where you are and other customer complaints, that could take from minutes to days to happen.
posted by birdherder at 5:25 PM on July 23, 2010

Also, the phone has been activated after a port for 6-7 hours.

Was the port from another mobile phone or from a land line?
posted by niles at 5:27 PM on July 23, 2010

Response by poster: Port was from another mobile, and my wife's phone is also a Virgin Mobile phone and she isn't having problems making calls. Her phone is not a Blackberry though.
posted by 4ster at 5:29 PM on July 23, 2010

My port to Virgin Mobile in May took almost a month. Be glad you have web service. I hear that they're better now.
posted by hey you over in the corner at 7:40 PM on July 23, 2010

Response by poster: Apparently it has something to do with my MSID. When I change it to all zeroes, I get the "if you would like to place a collect call" message (like you do if you try to make a call before the phone is activated. If I use my Virgin-assigned MSID, I get the error mentioned in my original post.

When I ported from Sprint to Virgin, it wasn't bad. When I ported from Virgin to Straight Talk, it wasn't bad at all, but going from Straight Talk back to Virgin has resulted in this mess.
posted by 4ster at 7:54 PM on July 23, 2010

Ports can take time to get resolved completely, even after it's been 'completed'. Sometimes techs forget to remove routes, etc, too, which can cause weirdness. I'd expect it to take about 24-48 hours to get fixed.
posted by empath at 9:39 PM on July 23, 2010

Seconding empath. Wait a couple of days. Ports are archaic and esoteric. It'll fix itself after a while.
posted by Mwongozi at 10:45 AM on July 24, 2010