Our changeover from Plusnet to BT was done yesterday & our existing Plusnet phone number was active as soon as the full fibre & digital voice became active which was immediately after the fibre cables had been spliced.
We had, however, arranged with BT for our number to be ported & we'd confirmed with Plusnet that it would be ported.
It matters a lot, on who the losing provider is, especially if they do not use the Openreach network. like Virgin Media, who have their own network and number ranges.
Sky and other LLU providers, can also present a problem, as they have their own equipment in the BT exchanges, and their own number ranges.
If a number was originally issued by BT Retail, then porting is easier, as BT Retail would own the number, but there is still a time limit, before all the routing information is deleted.
I moved from NOW Broadband/Phone
That is part of Sky.
Did they originally issue you with your number from their number range, or did you move to them from another provider?
There have been reported issues with number transfers from Sky/Now, to BT Retail.
When did your Now TV number stop working?
The Telephone Number has been the same since 1992 when I moved here and probably quite a few years before that so the Number must have been originally issued by BT or the GPO who operated Telephone services in the UK before the formation of BT in the 1980's who took over GPO phone lines.
I remained a BT customer with this original Number about 20 years
My NOW phone line stopped working overnight on the 19th October and my BT Broadband became effective before 6am on 20th October.
When did you move your BT phone/broadband service from BT Retail to Now TV? I assume you must have ported your number from BT Retail to them.
BT do not control the allocation of numbers, they are allocated to Service Providers by Ofcom. Providers rent the actual lines from Openreach.
I moved from BT to SKY around 2009 then to PlusNet around 2014 then to NOW about 2017 then back to BT on 20th Oct 2023 (9 days ago
I can see lots of issues there, as porting was never intended to work this way over multiple providers.
Your original BT issued number may no longer exist on the network, as its physical appearance on your local BT exchange, would be long gone.
All you can do is to hope that BT can alter the routing manually, its not always possible.
My landline number has been a standard BT area Number since 1992 (31 years) when I moved to this house and probably many years before that it 01736 788*** a standard Penzance area dialling code number before SKY or any the other newer providers even existed.
My number has never changed in over 31 years that is why I want it back.