Porting LL number form Virgin to BT, 3 weeks and not yet solved

[Jul9]

Yes. Virgin suppose to reactivate the land line tomorrow 7/10, after they stopped it on 17/09 (just few days before bt could have ported the number)

[Keith_Beddoe]

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@Jul9 wrote:
Yes. Virgin suppose to reactivate the land line tomorrow 7/10, after they stopped it on 17/09 (just few days before bt could have ported the number)

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Lets see if it can actually be ported.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Jul9 

Please can you update this thread with the result. Thanks.

[Jul9 · Accepted solution]

Hello again, 

After 3 months of trying unsuccessfully to port the LL number from virgin to bt I gave up.  

Bt had about 6 weeks the line active and not able to port the number.

Then, they were asking me to contact virgin to reactivate the line.  Had twice a subcontractor from virgin to install a new line and explained them we had a virgin line, it just needed to be activated. They said will speak to their manager and come back to me, but they never did. Eventually, virgin said that the line is not with them anymore. 

Strangely, after that bt spoke to open reach and they put an order in to port the old number and it went through. An email confirming that had been sent. One day later, a text saying I had to contact bt in regards to that order. The outcome, you can probably guess,  the line shoud be active for the numberto be ported!!!

Had enough and decided to give up and keep the present bt number. 

Bt offer some credit for all the time wasted. 

Probably,  one of the replies above was right saying that the number cannot be ported from virgin (if it's a virgin allocated line from ofcom) to bt. It's a shame that both providers should have said from the beginning that in this case the number cannot be ported. 

Thanks for all your replies. 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Jul9 

Thanks for the update. The result was exactly as I expected.

There seems to be a lack of understanding of the technical obstacles in porting numbers between totally separate networks. The existing BT legacy network  does not lend itself to importing numbers that do not originally belong to BT, on the current exchange.

Once the old BT PSTN network is closed, then calls are going to be IP based, and portability would be all done within routing tables, just like mobile porting.

I expect there will be a radical shakeup of the existing Ofcom number allocations, as theoretically, you could have the same number for as long as you like, with different providers, and even if you moved to a different part of the country.

[Saruman]

Probably a bit late if you’ve given up but it sounds like a service establishment issue which is fix-able to get the number built onto the BT network however it’d involve BT escalating this with Openreach’s number porting team  and for this type of work it generally takes around 55 working days. Put simply it’d need a porting agreement built between Virgin Media and BT for the number but it’s a bit more complex than that 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Saruman 

Its not a service establishment issue, its a technical issue due to the way that the BT exchanges were originally designed in the 1970-80s, when number portability was not even considered, as the GPO, then Post Office Telephones were the only providers.

I worked in the business from 1968-2009 and know how things developed from the original Strowger mechanical exchanges, where individual ranges of numbers were physically allocated to each exchange and could not be changed. There was some flexibility with linked number ranges, where a range of numbers could be shared amongst local Strowger exchanges.

This concept continued into the crossbar and then the electronic exchanges AXE10, System X and System Y, and remains today.

Other Licenced Operators (OLOs), came later, and they did not have the same limitations, as their systems were mostly software controlled and could emulate a phone number using the C7 signalling paths.

Virgin Media evolved from the old cable TV networks like Rediffusion and quite a few others. They have a totally different network design which  can import numbers from other providers like BT, Sky etc, but those numbers will always return to the number range owner, once the service ceases or changes.

VM have number ranges which are totally different from BT, and although its technically possible for incoming numbers to be directed to a BT customer, via the OLO interface, its not possible for the outgoing BT connection, to originate a VM number, as the BT number range is fixed. (unless there has been a work around in the last 11 years)

If a customer was originally with BT, which many customers were, then provided they are still within the physical exchange area, then its straightforward for them to return to BT, from another provider.

Once the BT PSTN network is closed, then VOIP will become the norm, and that has no physical limitations.