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Message 1 of 19

Renumbering Farce

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My house move has become a nightmare recently and looking for a little help as numerous calls have gotten me no where. A little background, I moved at the end of last week and although perfectly happy with the landline, broadband and Sport I got with BT they couldnt offer anymore than 2mb broadband at my new house so I had to go with a local fibre to the property supplier instead.

New supplier said dont cancel BT as we need it active to port the number so I didnt. Day of the move I get an email from BT saying all my services have stopped and please return the hub? 

After some investigation it 'looks' like although BT wont confirm, the new owners of my old house have called BT and cancelled my services.

I contacted BT saying I didnt want anything cancelled for a few days as I needed to port the old number but after numerous calls and even a new line costing me £70 activation fee on my new house I dont even want or need I still dont have my old number back, I have contacted the person apparently dealing with the renumbering twice but havent heard a thing so I really dont know where else to turn  and am really hoping someone can help me here, thank you in advance.

Regards,
Mike

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Message 2 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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@mikensam 

Unless you are going to choose BT Retail as your provider, then this forum cannot help.

If the original number was issued by BT Retail, then it would have been returned to them, as they would be the number range holder.

If that is the case, then the only way to get your number back, would be to move your phone service to BT Retail, assuming your new property is still connected to the same BT exchange building.

The people who moved into your old house would have taken over your line, which is why your services were cancelled.

 

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Message 3 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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If the phone number is important, then you could keep your BT Retail line which you have paid the installation charge for, and see if you can get it renumbered to your original number. That would only be possible if you are still connected to the same exchange building.

 

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Message 4 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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If you moved , you effectively lose any ‘ownership’ of the line at your old property ( why should the new occupant have to wait around for someone who has left the property to eventually get around to doing something about it ) so probably , they new apply for service ( with anyone using Openreach network ) your ‘old’ provider sends a letter to that address saying is it ‘OK’ or a mistake for the line to taken over, you obviously are not there to answer that letter, and an unanswered letter is deemed consent that the takeover is OK, so the new customer at your old address , effectively ceases your service and if you haven’t already made alternative arrangements with BT at your new address, eventually you will get a final bill , the last date being the day before the new customer started service with whatever company they used.


Your number from that address will now be back in BT quarantine, and when sufficient time has expired, it’s available to be re allocated to another BT customer, any opportunity to port the number has now gone, plus number port isn’t a home mover service, it’s to remove a barrier for changing providers at the current address, it’s not intended to be done retrospectively, addresses need to match up when a port order is arranged, obviously your new and old addresses are different.


If you are willing ( if not happy ) to get a BT line installed at your new address and both the old and new address are served from the same local exchange, then you ( eventually ) will be able to get the number back ( getting whatever new number is on your new BT service , renumbered to the number you want, ) it’s not immediate, although there should be no  extra delay due to ‘porting’ complications .


If you confirm you have had a BT line installed at the new address, and both addresses are connected to the same exchange, then a BT mod may offer to arrange the renumber, if those prerequisites are not met then there isn’t anything to be done, presumably you must have realised that if you leave a property but leave an active account there , then  not only will it inconvenience the new occupant, you have no control over what happens next, you should have made arrangements before you moved , not after.

Whoever  the ‘alt net’ you used for broadband  are ‘responsible’ in no small part for this situation, because  the advice they gave  you had at least two errors , number port is not the correct process if you are moving home , and they shouldn’t say it’s OK to not advise your current provider about you leaving the original property.

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Message 5 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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@Keith_Beddoewrote:

@mikensam 

Unless you are going to choose BT Retail as your provider, then this forum cannot help.

If the original number was issued by BT Retail, then it would have been returned to them, as they would be the number range holder.

If that is the case, then the only way to get your number back, would be to move your phone service to BT Retail, assuming your new property is still connected to the same BT exchange building.

 


Is this still the case?

If the customer had a number, say initially on BT, then went to Plusnet and decided to change to Sky, all keeping the same number - does the porting system now actually allow for this to happen? In other words does the change from Plusnet to Sky actually issue a request to BT (the range holder in this case) to change the porting to Sky?

There is no need to transfer back to BT Retail as the change would be transparent to the end user.

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Message 6 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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I maybe answering a question not addressed to myself, but if there is no break in service and the same address throughout, then you can port from BT , then to other company’s without having to return to BT for service at each occasion, in your example, assuming PNs’ own network rather than BTw, the ‘port’ from PN to Sky is unclear ( to me at least ) do BT have to close the port to PN and then set up a port to Sky ( which seems unfair on BT , having ‘tasks’ for a now twice removed customer) , or BT keep the port to PN in place ( so nothing to do ) and PN set up a port to Sky , so in effect an incoming call is redirected twice, BT to PN, PN to Sky ?, bearing in mind this takes milliseconds, so no real affect on the call set up time.
I guess that in the OP case, the number has already been ‘lost’ , so the only realistic way to retrieve it is by joining ( or rejoining ) the number range holder company , BT, and it seems the OP has done that

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Message 7 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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@iniltouswrote:

I maybe answering a question not addressed to myself, but if there is no break in service and the same address throughout, then you can port from BT , then to other company’s without having to return to BT for service at each occasion, in your example, assuming PNs’ own network rather than BTw, the ‘port’ from PN to Sky is unclear ( to me at least ) do BT have to close the port to PN and then set up a port to Sky ( which seems unfair on BT , having ‘tasks’ for a now twice removed customer) , or BT keep the port to PN in place ( so nothing to do ) and PN set up a port to Sky , so in effect an incoming call is redirected twice, BT to PN, PN to Sky ?, bearing in mind this takes milliseconds, so no real affect on the call set up time.


Depends on what the OFCOM ruling is whether the range holder has to do the work. It's actually only a few small (effectively a one liner) software change to port the existing number to the new supplier.

I don't expect there to be a double porting, as that could get very messy. Agreed there is no actual call set up time lag, and probably even less than milliseconds 🙂 However there is a network issue with potential multiple hops.

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Message 8 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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Thanks for all of the replies.

The new house is on the same telephone exchange and I have already setup a new line on this address with a different telephone number so I think this might be possible.

Who do I need to talk to, to ask to run the renumbering on here please?

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Message 9 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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Is the new line now active with dial tone?

If it is, then first contact BT Customer Services and ask for a re-number back to your original number. There would be a small charge for this.

If they cannot help with this, then a forum moderator can be asked to assist.

You need to be 100% sure that your number was originally issued to you, by BT Retail.

If you need help finding this out, then please ask here.

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Message 10 of 19

Re: Renumbering Farce

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The new number is active with a dial tone.
I really don't want to spend half the day on the phone, I have got further here in 10 minutes than I did with 3 hours to CS.
How do I find out 100% if the original number was issued by BT Retail?
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