Landline number disconnected

[Jamzter786]

Hi, so I was on BT around 3 years ago with my Landline number I've had for around 20+ years, I switched to Virgin Media Business with the same landline number and everything was perfect, however just recently a month ago I switched fully over to Virgin Media Home (Virgin Media Broadband and Landline), which was supposed to connect my Landline phone to the account, I called them and they said they would port over my number etc, so I thought nothing of it they said it would be a week, so I called numerous times and they said it would be fine and sorted, now recently called to port my number and they've said they can't because its gone past the 8 day mark to port over an old landline number, so I called BT explained my situation and I've been told its fine and they can request my number back from openreach. I called them back and they mentioned the same thing, 8 day mark, I am getting really scared now because I've had this number for around 20 years and I'm going to lose it, I need this number is there anything I can do? I would even consider getting a landline just on BT so I could get my number back if that's possible, I was told it can be requested back just don't know how I could go about this, any help would be really appreciated, thanks.

[madhatter2426]

You can request the number back if you come back to BT. However it isn't guaranteed that you will be able to get it back. Don't know why Virgin are saying past the 8 day mark, unless its there process.

[-Richie-]

This won't be cheap, I'd confirm with Virgin Media they will cover the costs for their mistake.
You'll need to order a new phone line with BT and you'll be assigned a random unused number, a line on it's own has a £70 one-off fee, then £20.20 per month without a calling plan, once the order is live you can contact BT and ask for a renumber, tell them you know the number you want and provide the old number, a renumber has a one-off cost of £26

Once the renumber request is processed, then it will be determind if the number can be retained, if so you have your old number back.

[iniltous]

If you haven’t been a ‘BT’ customer for 3 years , presumably your VM switch was little more than business to residential accounting move and doesn’t involve porting as such ( VM already had the number ported from BT ), if they have managed to lose the number and it’s now been returned to BT , then unless there have been some recent changes to the porting rules, the only realistic way to get the number back would be (as already stated) to rejoin BT .
VM have used confusing language, they don’t ‘port‘ the number if it were just a VM business to VM residential internal move , that could be done without ‘BT’ even knowing it was happening, but once VM messed up and ceased your business ‘line’ the number automatically goes back to the original number ‘owner’, who are (AFAIK) under no obligation to port it again , as it isn’t a working number in your name with BT, and them having the number back isn’t stopping you moving to your preferred provider ( you are already with them ) and it’s not ‘BT’ that have caused the problem.
I’ve never heard of this 8 day period , but perhaps they now have a window to resolve messed up ports , but even if that is the case apparently you are outside of that anyway.

[Keith_Beddoe]

As VM changed the account type, then that most probably also involved them having to cease one circuit and provide another, as business and residential have different quality of service.

This would "break" the BT to VM network path on the BT OLO (Other Licenced Operator) network interface, and the connection would revert back to BT right away. 

This has been reported before on this forum.