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Message 1 of 10

Retaining original phone number

When I ordered 70mb FTTP I specifically asked whether I could retain my phone number when I moved from Talktalk. I was told yes and received an email from BT saying :-

"Your home phone number is: ***********
We'll include it in online and paper directories, so people will be able to find it easily.
Your service should start before midnight on: 21 Sep 2020
We'll be in touch to confirm this date soon."

The fibre was fitted yesterday and today another engineer calls to change my phone number to a different one! I have complained to BT that my contract could be broken and that, if they persisted, I would cancel and return to Talktalk. Is this common and do their salesmen say aything to get a contract.

I attempted to phone BT today but was told everyone was out till 3.05PM!!!!!

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Message 2 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

please delete your phone number as this is a public forum and you may get more scam calls than you can handle

as it is FTTP then you need to phone FTTP team 08005874787

is the number you are  trying to retain originally a TT or BT or someone else?  are you still at same address where number was originally issued?



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Message 3 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

Number was BT originally inherited from previous house owner.  Then talktalk business took it over now back to BT in same house.

 

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Message 4 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

@meditek 

Your number belongs to BT Retail, not Talk Talk. This is from the Ofcom database. This means that there should not be any issue keeping it, as you must have been a BT retail customer before, which is why BT say you can keep it.

The number you have been given at the moment, is just a temporary one to allow service to be provided. Once your line is active, and Talk Talk have released the number back to BT, then you will be given the number that was specified on your order. I looked your number up before you edited it 😀

 

1723 86 Allocated BT

4+6

15/07/1994
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Message 5 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

Thanks for the lucid explanation. The engineer was unable to tell and Bt certainly didn't. I suppose my line will go dead as I refused what I thought was a permanent change.

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Message 6 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number


@meditek wrote:

Thanks for the lucid explanation. The engineer was unable to tell and Bt certainly didn't. I suppose my line will go dead as I refused what I thought was a permanent change.


Its normal practice to provide a temporary number during porting of numbers, as its not possible for Openreach to provide a service without a valid telephone number. In fact its not even possible for BT to create an order without one.

BT use a spare, or "stopped" phone number to start with, but once service is active, and the number is available, then a simple renumber is done. This does not involve any manual intervention, its all robotic.

Wait until your line is active, and if you do not get your number back in a couple of days, then you can chase it up.

The only issue can occur, is if you are getting your phone over a copper pair of wires, and your current address is not connected to the same physical exchange building as your last address. This would have been identified at the point of ordering.

Numbers are unique to each exchange building.

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Message 7 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

Openreach fitted fttp yesterday when my number was what its been for 12 years! It was today they wanted to change it.

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Message 8 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number


@meditek wrote:

Openreach fitted fttp yesterday when my number was what its been for 12 years! It was today they wanted to change it.


That does not make sense, somebody has made a mistake. For you to get it right away, means that it must have already been returned to BT. All you can do is to chase it up with the FTTP team.

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Message 9 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number

New appointment sorted on for Friday (line repair or somthing). Temp number over weekend. Back to normal Monday. Got through on the number you gave me almost immediately! No suggestion that TT had released it.

Thanks again

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Message 10 of 10

Re: Retaining original phone number


@meditek wrote:

New appointment sorted on for Friday (line repair or somthing). Temp number over weekend. Back to normal Monday. Got through on the number you gave me almost immediately! No suggestion that TT had released it.

Thanks again


Probably some network re-arrangement taking place, especially if the routing of your number had to be changed, to allow the full migration to FTTP. I expect there is a lot of work going on at the moment.

Sooner that leave you with no phone number, they have given you a temporary number. I am sure it will be fine in the end.

 

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