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Buying or porting an Australian number

You need at least one Australian number in your Twilio account before Praxi can route inbound calls. You can either buy a new number from Twilio or port your existing practice number to Twilio.

Buying a new number​

  1. Sign in to the Twilio Console.
  2. Open Phone Numbers → Manage → Buy a number.
  3. Pick Australia as the country.
  4. Choose the type of number you want:
    • Local — geographic numbers in 02 (Sydney/Canberra), 03 (Melbourne/ Hobart), 07 (Brisbane), 08 (Perth/Adelaide/Darwin). Cheapest at ~$8 AUD/month.
    • National — 1300 (caller pays local rate, you pay the rest) and 1800 (toll-free, you pay the inbound).
  5. Filter by area code or number pattern if you want a memorable number.
  6. Tick the Voice capability (Praxi only uses Voice for Practice Phone; SMS on Twilio AU is more restrictive and not currently part of the Suite).
  7. Click Buy.

Twilio bills the monthly fee to the payment method on file. The number is available in your account immediately.

After buying:

  1. Switch to Praxi.
  2. Open Settings → AI Phone → Numbers.
  3. Click Import number and pick the new number from the list.

Praxi automatically wires the inbound voice webhooks to its own endpoint (per-number random path token + HMAC signature verification) and assigns a default routing flow.

Porting an existing number to Twilio​

Porting brings your existing practice number across to Twilio so you can use it with Practice Phone without losing the number callers already know.

Before you start​

  • Porting in Australia takes about 5–10 business days.
  • The current carrier may charge a porting-out fee.
  • You retain the number throughout — there's no risk of losing it as long as the port request matches the account-holder details exactly.

How to port​

  1. Sign in to the Twilio Console and open Phone Numbers → Porting.
  2. Click Submit a port request and enter the number(s) you're porting.
  3. Twilio asks for:
    • A recent bill from the current carrier (must show the number and the account holder's name).
    • A signed Letter of Authorisation (Twilio generates a template).
    • The regulatory bundle from your earlier setup.
  4. Twilio reviews and confirms a porting window. You'll be notified when the port completes.
  5. Import the number into Praxi the same way you would a freshly purchased number.

Should I port my mobile number?​

Generally no. Australian mobile number portability (MNP) loses the SIM — if you port a 04x number into Twilio, you lose the ability to receive personal calls or SMS on that handset. For mobiles, the carrier-forwarding wizard inside Praxi is a safer option: it generates the correct forwarding dial code for your carrier (Telstra and Optus use *21*<number>#; Vodafone uses **21*<number>#) for your mobile so that calls forward to your Twilio number without changing the SIM's ownership.

After import​

Each imported number lands in Praxi's Numbers table with:

  • The friendly name from Twilio.
  • The capabilities (Voice and any SMS Twilio reported).
  • A random 64-character webhook path token (Twilio's webhook URL is unique per number — this stops anyone guessing your webhook to inject fake calls).

You can detach a number from Praxi at any time. Detaching:

  • Stops Praxi from receiving any further calls on that number.
  • Leaves the number in your Twilio account (so you can re-import or move it to another tool).
  • Stops billing the $29/seat add-on for any seat that has only this number attached — proration is automatic on your next invoice.