It's been a while since I ported a number but the last time I did it took days here in the UK too. I just assumed it was typical inefficiency by the mobile operators rather than a security thing, however.
It takes days in the UK because we have a crappy system where instead of having a central register of number -> provider, calls are still routed to a ported number via the "donor" network, i.e. the network the number range belongs. So I just ported from O2 to EE, and my calls and texts will still go through o2, and then sent on to EE. Not very efficient.
