Bring your own number
You don’t have to buy a new number to use Ciaomatic. If you already have a business number — with a mobile carrier, a landline provider, or a PBX / VoIP system — you can keep it and simply forward its calls to Ciaomatic. There are three ways to do it:
- Call forwarding — best for a mobile or a single landline. You dial a short code (or flip a setting) and your carrier forwards calls to Ciaomatic.
- SIP — best for a PBX or VoIP system (FreePBX, 3CX, a SIP trunk). You point a trunk at a Ciaomatic SIP domain and route the number to it.
- Porting (LNP) — permanently move the number itself onto Ciaomatic, so there’s no forwarding hop at all. This is a carrier transfer that takes days to weeks; forwarding is the instant alternative while you decide.
Whichever route you choose, callers still dial your existing number — nothing changes for them. Ciaomatic answers the forwarded call with your published agent.
Call forwarding (mobile & landline)
Most mobile carriers support conditional call forwarding through GSM codes you dial like a phone number. The common ones:
| Code | Forwards when… |
|---|---|
**21*<number># | …always (every call) |
**61*<number># | …you don’t answer |
**67*<number># | …your line is busy |
**62*<number># | …your phone is unreachable / off |
Replace <number> with the Ciaomatic destination in full international format
(for example +14155550123) and press call. To turn a rule off, dial the same
code with ## instead of ** (e.g. ##21#).
The destination is always one of your Ciaomatic numbers, and the agent assigned to that number is the one that answers the forwarded calls. If you own several numbers, the card in Numbers → Bring your own has a picker to choose which one the codes (and the contact file below) point at — it also shows which agent will answer.
GSM forwarding codes vary by carrier and country, and some carriers charge for
forwarded minutes or require you to enable the feature on your plan first. If a
code is rejected (“invalid MMI code” or similar), try replacing the + with
your international dialing prefix (00 in Europe, 011 in North America). If
it still fails, many carriers only allow forwarding to numbers in the same
country as your line — pick a Ciaomatic number from your own country as the
destination (verified live: a Spanish mobile forwarding to a US number gets
rejected by the network).
Landlines
Landlines can forward too — the mechanism just varies by provider:
- Spain & most of Europe — the mobile codes above often work as-is on a
fixed line; some providers use the single-star form instead (
*21*<number>#to activate,#21#to cancel). - US & Canada — dial
*72followed by the number to activate,*73to cancel. Many providers also offer*90/*92for the busy and no-answer variants. - Everywhere else — every major provider exposes “call forwarding” (often labelled “divert” or “follow-me”) in its customer portal, app, or via a support call.
Dial the destination the way you’d normally dial from that line — a landline
handset may not accept the + prefix, so use your national format or the
00/011 international prefix as appropriate. Note that the forwarded leg is
an outbound call billed by your carrier, and a few fixed-line plans exclude
forwarding or charge it per minute — check yours if the destination is far
away.
Business phone systems typically expose forwarding in the admin console rather than as a dial code — and a PBX can skip forwarding entirely by registering a trunk: see the SIP section below.
Save the codes as contacts (mobile only)
On the mobile you want to forward, you don’t have to remember any codes: on
Numbers → Bring your own, under Keep your existing number, download the
ready-made contact card (ciaomatic-forwarding.vcf) and import it into that
phone’s contacts. (Landlines have no contacts — use the codes or your
provider’s panel above.) It adds three contacts with your Ciaomatic number
already embedded:
- Forward all calls —
**21*<number># - Forward when unavailable —
**004*<number>#, which sets the busy, no-answer, and unreachable rules in one go - Stop forwarding —
##002#, which cancels every forwarding rule
Add them to your phone and just call the contact to switch forwarding on or off.
iPhone imports these contacts intact, but some Android contact apps strip the
* and # when importing a contact file. After importing, open a contact and
check the code survived. If it didn’t, every code in Numbers → Bring your own has
a copy button — copy it and paste it into your dialer. (Tap-to-dial links
can’t help here: mobile browsers either block tel: links containing * or
#, or corrupt the code by dropping the + on the way to the dialer.)
SIP (PBX & VoIP)
If you run a PBX or VoIP system, connect it to Ciaomatic over SIP. Ciaomatic gives your workspace a dedicated SIP domain with digest credentials; your phone system authenticates to it and routes your number’s calls there.
Enable SIP access
In the dashboard go to Numbers → Bring your own and click Enable SIP access. Ciaomatic shows you three values:
- a SIP domain (e.g.
ciaomatic-3f9a2b1c-8d4e-4f6a-9b2c-1e5d7a8f0c3b.sip.twilio.com— your dedicated endpoint on our telephony partner’s infrastructure), - a username, and
- a password.
The password is shown only once. Copy all three values before closing the dialog — you can re-open the domain and username later, but not the password.
Lost your password? It can’t be recovered — Ciaomatic only ever stores an encrypted copy. From Numbers → Bring your own, use Reset password to generate a new one (shown once, like the original). Resetting revokes the old password immediately, so update your PBX or SIP trunk with the new value right away or calls will stop connecting.
Point your PBX or SIP trunk at the domain
Create an outbound SIP trunk (or provider / peer) in your phone system aimed at the SIP domain, using the username and password as the digest credentials. Generic settings that work with FreePBX, 3CX, and most SIP stacks:
- Transport: SIP over TLS.
- Authentication: digest (username + password) on the outgoing
INVITE. There is no IP-based auth — the credentials travel with each call. - Registration: off. Ciaomatic authenticates per call, so you do not register the trunk; you just send calls to it with the credentials attached.
- Dialled number: send the destination in E.164 format (a leading
+and the full international number), matching a number you register below.
Register your numbers
Back in Numbers → Bring your own, add each number you’ll forward: enter it in E.164 format and pick its country, then Register. Ciaomatic only answers calls that arrive for a registered number, so a number must be listed here before it will work. Remove a number any time to stop routing it.
Route the number and test
In your PBX, route inbound calls for your existing number out through the Ciaomatic trunk (dialling the registered E.164 destination). Place a test call to your number — Ciaomatic answers with your published agent.
BYO SIP numbers don’t incur a monthly number rental from us — you keep paying your existing carrier for the number itself. Call minutes are billed the same as any other Ciaomatic call.
Port your number in
Porting moves the number itself onto Ciaomatic, so calls ring straight through with no forwarding in between. Unlike forwarding, it’s a permanent transfer run by the carriers — plan for it to take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and keep your current line active until it finishes.
Check the number
In Numbers → Bring your own, open Port your number in, enter the number in E.164
format (a leading + and the full international number), pick its country, and
choose Check number. Ciaomatic tells you whether it can be ported.
Start the port
If it’s portable, choose Start port (this requires an active plan — the same gate as buying a number — and can only be done by a workspace owner). Ciaomatic opens the transfer and starts tracking it under Ports in progress.
Provide any documents the carriers ask for
To release a number, your current carrier may ask for proof you own it — most often a recent bill or a signed letter of authorization (LOA), and sometimes the account number or a transfer PIN from that carrier. If anything is needed we’ll email you; reply with what’s requested to keep the port moving.
Wait for completion
We email you when the port completes, and the number appears under your owned numbers — point it at an agent and it starts answering. We also email you if the port needs your input or doesn’t go through, with what to do next.
Keep your existing service active until the port completes — cancelling early can cancel the port. Most delays come from a mismatch between the details you gave and what your current carrier has on file, so make sure the number, account name, and address match your carrier account exactly.
A ported number becomes an ordinary Ciaomatic number, so it carries the same monthly number rental as one you buy from us (your old carrier’s charges stop once the transfer completes). Call minutes are billed like any other call.