This topic

Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 07:46:27 GMT

I am in contract with BT for broadband and Digital Voice ie FTTP (1 month to go). I want to retain my telephone number of 30 years. If I port out my number to a third party telephony provider - will my broadband cease? (I think it will). I have been assured by BT customer services that broadband will be unaffected. I have also been assured by BT customer services that broadband will be ceased. Does anyone actually *know* ?

Re: Number porting - yet again

licquorice — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 08:13:57 GMT

Your broadband will be ceased if you cease your landline. Crazy, but that's what happens.

Re: Number porting - yet again

iniltous — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:08:41 GMT

What is you want to do ? , if you are thinking of leaving BT as the timing is ‘good’ in that you only have a month of minimum term remaining, then what’s the problem, the new provider arranges everything, that is unless you want your phone service and broadband from different vendors ….
Your current arrangement means your BT account if you port the phone number will cease , that includes the broadband because your phone and broadband are linked , that may seem daft to you , but that’s the way it is….however without knowing what it is you want to do and what vendors you intend to use then offering any more advice is pointless

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:42:39 GMT

That's what I thought. Yesterday however I was assured by BT support that this was NOT the case. I pressed the call handler (at length) on this and he consulted with manager/supervisor/the spirit world. He then repeated that the BB service would continue when the number was ported out.

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:07:41 GMT

Thanks for the quick response.

The desired end state is telephony from Freeola (with my current number) and BB from EE. I understand the bundled nature of telephony and BB and was expecting number porting to trigger the ceasing of the BB service. However, in a long conversation with BT support yesterday the call handler stated/repeated that the BB service would not be stopped by porting out the number. Do you have a reference in a BT source where it states "number porting will cease broadband service"?

Re: Number porting - yet again

iniltous — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:37:38 GMT

No , the evidence that porting a phone number ceases any associated broadband is anecdotal , but if you wish to ‘prove’ it , start your number port journey by contacting Freeola , you should get pretty quickly a communication saying ‘sorry you are leaving’ , obviously you could interpret that as leaving only the telephone service , but you only have one BT account that you can ‘leave’ , the fact is you have no agreed contract for broadband as a standalone service , so ceasing one element (telephone) by default ceases the existing contract that includes broadband , expecting this to be explicit somewhere on the BT site is optimistic.

It may be that recently BT have managed to unlink telephone and broadband so that getting rid of one part doesn’t affect the other but I’d be surprised if that were the case , the terms you agreed were for a bundle of services, what agreement do you have once the initial terms are breached by you taking the phone number elsewhere ?

TBH apart from not having to consider telephony again if moving from EE broadband in the future what’s the appeal ? , your choice of VoIP providers PAYG standing charge is more than twice the typical EE PAYG price , although the price per minute may be better, but if you are anything other than an occasional caller, surely an inclusive call plan is better ( so the pence per minute fee is irrelevant ) .

Personally I can’t see the advantage of using this VoIP provider over EE for telephony, even their limited inclusive calls isn’t particularly compelling compared to BT/EE unlimited minutes inclusive calls plan (£12 after negotiations ) , but that’s your choice .

Re: Number porting - yet again

licquorice — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:22:10 GMT

I hope you don't think that you will be saving 'line rental' costs by porting the number to a third party.

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:39:50 GMT

Thanks @iniltous
I want to be able to use my own router/firewall. As you say if I go through the pain once now, I won't have to worry about telephony in any subsequent broadband moves.

I will request the number port through Freeola. When this completes the BT BB service will cease and I will take out a new contract with EE for broadband. I will be without broadband for a while but hopefully not too long.

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:56:22 GMT

Thanks @licquorice The prime driver for making the change is to allow me to use my own router without having to daisy chain off the BT/EE one, not cost.

Re: Number porting - yet again

iniltous — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 11:05:52 GMT

Given that numbers are supposedly ‘held’ available to port for 30 days after cessation, I’d be inclined to switch to EE for broadband only , and then after the migration , port the number during that 30 day window , but I suppose if a break in broadband service is a price worth paying to guarantee ( as far as possible ) the number is maintained, then that’s your choice .

FWIW , many use the supplied BT/EE router to handle telephony only ( to the extent of switching if it’s WiFi ) and then use their own equipment ( connected to the BT/EE hub ) for everything else .

I suppose the only other thing worth mentioning is if your own kit hasn’t a configurable voice port, then you will need an ATA or phone with built in ATA to use your VoIP service and if your router does have a configurable telephone port , that your VoIP supplier provides the details to set up your own equipment.

as I mentioned anecdotal evidence, plenty of this regarding things regarding VoIP from third parties, such as one way transmission, incompatibility with ‘true call’ , and strange behaviour on some multi phone installations with VoIP , hopefully you realise it’s not necessarily a plug and play situation

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 11:28:30 GMT

Thanks @iniltous all good points.

I did think about the 30 day window but would prefer to port out in advance. If porting is rejected/fails the only thing I will lose is the porting fee - not the number.

Yes I have daisy chained my own gear off the BT router - I just want to eliminated unnecessary moving parts if I can.

I have carried out a trial using an ATA and the service is acceptable. (Freeola provision the ATA and/or supply configuration details)

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:00:43 GMT

Hi @iniltous & @licquorice

With some trepidation I went ahead last week and requested to port out my number to Freeola. The signs looked good as I did not get any "sorry you are leaving us messages" from BT. There was a comment from the Freeola admin along the lines of "as you are already on FTTP your broadband should not be affected". Today the telephony service on my legacy number went live with Freeola through an ATA plugged into my BT router. When I look at my BT account I can see that my only product is broadband. Obviously I am left paying for the BT telephone service which I am no longer using (but only for a few weeks). I now plan to take stock and make a decision where to go for broadband when my contract with BT ends in a few weeks time.

As @iniltous suggested perhaps BT have unlinked telephony from broadband. This of course may only apply to services provided through FTTP. BTW I am as surprised as you are that this has worked.

In conclusion: In my situation with FTTP from BT I was able to port out my legacy telephone number to Freeola VOIP without affecting my broadband service.

Re: Number porting - yet again

licquorice — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:09:18 GMT

Good result, thanks for the update.

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:05:21 GMT

I may have been premature further update to follow....

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 09:27:01 GMT

TLDR: number porting worked without loosing broadband

I thought I had ported my number out without any problems. However when I checked my account I saw that my broadband was due to be discontinued in the next week (but no automated messages about this). I phoned BT and complained and after a bit of to and fro it was sorted. I got an automated message saying my new router would be delivered soon!? I'm guessing that a new digital voice service had been requested. After a few days I saw that BT telephony was marked as active in my account with a new number (but not active in my BT router). So it was a bit ugly for a moment or two but I ported out my number without loosing my fibre broadband.

Re: Number porting - yet again

imjolly — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:25:31 GMT

@Ilex

yours is second post I have read where customer has managed to port out phone number without disconnecting the broadband. Now on broadband only contract instead of broadband with phone

Have BT eventually improved the system to allow customers to port number to a VOIP provider without terminating existing broadband contract?

Re: Number porting - yet again

iniltous — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:36:09 GMT

Presumably you didn’t receive a second sorry to see you go message just for broadband as you had already received a sorry to see you go message for the bundle , so it was fortuitous that you kept looking and saw your broadband was on a path to cessation.

You seem to still have a phone service from BT/EE that you are paying for but is unnecessary, but the phone number you were keen to maintain is now with the VoIP supplier, so that’s a reasonable result but not a brilliant one .

There has been for ages , but for some strange reason rarely used by VoIP providers, a wholesale order type , ‘renumber and port’ , whereby the existing phone number is renumbered to any old number maintaining the broadband service , and the existing number is then ported to the new provider ( often a VoIP supplier ) , you seem to have in effect arranged is something similar to this , but not exactly in a seamless way .

Has your broadband service been recontracted ? , the new router suggests it has been , plus you are presumably still paying £3-5 a month for a PAYG service with a random phone number you won’t use , and should you try to remove that at some point you may well face the same hurdles keeping broadband active as you did in porting the now VoIP supplied number in the first place

Re: Number porting - yet again

Ilex — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 19:53:32 GMT

@iniltous Thanks for your comments

I timed the porting out (3 weeks before contract end) so that I would have enough time to roll back if it looked like it was all going wrong but not pay too long for a telephony service I wasn't using. I think I got it about right as it's only cost me about 3/4 of my monthly telephony charge (ie a few quid). The "new router" has not arrived so I think that was a dummy order. The new number is not active on my existing router so I guess I could grumble about that if I was being really picky and petty. If I was "staying" with BT I could have gone with the flow and started a new data only contract with EE aka BT. I am actually going to another provider (for fixed IP and other benefits). Although I didn't get the second round of "sorry you are leaving" messages I am getting frequent requests to return the router - if I could be bothered I would point out to BT that I am still in contract and that I am still actually using the flipping thing. I did also get the offer of what looked like quite a good contract price to stay - so that's a way of getting a cheaper deal with BT...

I may ask Freeola if they ever use the port and renumber order. As you say this is what I have actually achieved.

@imjolly asked: Have BT eventually improved the system to allow customers to port number to a VOIP provider without terminating existing broadband contract?

The answer is "sort of". It's only a sensible course of action is you are very near the end of your contract because the telephony service must still be payed for until the end of the contract.