Porting old landline number

[davebarber79]

I seem to be going round in circles with trying to port my old landline from Virgin to BT. We signed up with BT when we moved house on 20th June. At the time of the order we were told there were no guarantees we could port our old number but we could try later. Our Virgin contract was terminated on 19th June and both Virgin and BT advised if we waited for 2 weeks the number should become available to port. After 2 weeks I called customer service and they said it looked like it was good to port and said it should switch on 12th July. A couple of days ago the order was updated to cancelled and said someone should be in touch. I missed a call from someone in the Dundee centre who left a voicemail saying they could do it but they needed some more details about our Virgin line. After calling customer service they were not sure what this was about and said best bet was to put the porting order through again which they said was successful. I just checked and it looks like its been cancelled again.

Does anyone have any advice on anything I can do to get the number ported?

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

If you are moving house and changing provider at the same time , that isn’t really what number portability was designed to accommodate, the reason for regulator insistence on a number port policy ‘ is so that customers don’t feel restricted in changing provider at their current address , if they thought  changing provider could end up losing a long held phone number ….moving address has different requirements and restrictions, it’s not really ‘number portability’ .
Someone that is going to be moving home , and either doesn’t want to continue with their existing provider at the new address , or the existing provider cannot provide service at the new address , but wants l if possible to keep the phone number , should join the ‘new’ provider before they move , and then use that provider’s ‘home mover’ service, and if it’s possible ( because the new and old addresses are compatible, in BT case , both being on the same local ‘exchange’ ) then the number can be moved.
Trying to move home , change provider and expect the number to be ported when the address the old provider has , and the address the new provider is delivering service to , are not the same , will likely cause the number port process to fail as the addresses  should be the same when using number portability, but obviously the home mover process expects an old and new address

[davebarber79]

It sounds like we may have been badly advised in that case by several people at the start. From the voicemail I received it sounded like someone had an idea on how to make it work. Is there a specific team or department that is worth talking to that can resolve?

Not sure if it might make things easier but the old number was originally a BT number many years ago that had been transferred to Virgin.

[JohnC2]

Hi @davebarber79, I'm sorry that the number porting procedure was not fully explained to you. It is as @iniltous has said not designed to move a number from another provider to another address. This is because the postcode will have changed and it's not possible to move a number from one postcode to another on a port. 

Cheers

John

[davebarber79]

Ok, thanks both of you for the explanations

[DonnyGuy]

Hi Dave, 

This does sound like a bit of a nightmare. It appears BT are doing best endeavours in order to get your number back. I assume you've moved within your local area and are now on digital voice? 

So your original number, belonged to Openreach and was ported out to Virgin Media when you were at your last property. The reason why both BT and Virgin told you that you'd be able to get it back later is because, when your Virgin line ceased. The number would return to the original range holder (Virgin don't hold onto ported numbers once ceased) meaning a number port wouldn't be needed from Virgin as then number would then be returned to the BT range. 

But then things get a bit more complicated. BT can't see if a number is spare. Openreach can (so your number would show as 'exported' when it's with Virgin and would come back and be 'spare' once it's returned to BT). 

If the number is spare and in the pool, BT would be able to place a porting order to export away from Openreach and onto their voip platform (what digital voice runs on).

The fact that these orders are being cancelled makes me think Virgin haven't returned the number to the BT range yet meaning they can't pick it up. 

So I would check two things with BT

1. Are they placing a port order from Virgin (as that will fail as your line is dead)

2. Can they check with Openreach if your number has been returned and is now spare

3. If it is spare, they should be able to pick it up with a renumber order

But if it's not yet returned, then even a renumber order would fail. 

Good luck.

[davebarber79]

Thanks, yes we moved from VM to BT Digital voice in same area code (VM dont supply new address). I was about to give up but maybe it's worth one last try! Any recommendations of which options to press to get through to a department with the technical knowledge to be able to do this?

[DonnyGuy]

Leave it a few days just in case the number is attached to one of the failed orders and then when you call back, ask for the sales support team. They support the front line agents and the customers with more complex issues.