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Message 1 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

I joined BT from sky in February 2022. More than 2 months later I am still unable to use the BT landline that I have been paying monthly for. Not only did they not fully port the landline number that I have had for 38 years but the lndline number BT provided does not work either. I have called BT over 15 times. I wait for 1-2 hours for each call and every week I am assured that this time the number port will work and every week I am disappointed to find it has not worked and I have to call again. No one seems to want to pass it on to a manager to resolve my issue. I can't be the only BT customer to ever had this issue. I can make calls out and it says it is from my original landline number that I wish to use but I cannot receive any calls from any numbers. I am so frustrated with bt. Don't know how much more I can take. Why is it so hard to help me have a working landline with a number that seems to have partially ported and why can no one at BT listen to me instead of just saying no problem I will action this now and it will be done in 10 days only to be told that it hasn't been done 10 days later. I am so tired

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Message 2 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

Although BT as your provider are responsible for delivering your service ( incoming and outgoing)  you have to accept that number porting isn’t within the control of any one company ….you say you have had the phone number for 38 years so presumably you were a ‘BT’ customer when you first got that number…but at some point to obviously exported it to another provider ( at least one , the last being Sky ) ….are you still at the same address you were at when you were last a BT customer with this number ?

When you make an outgoing call and your  ‘correct’ number is displayed on the phone of the person you have called , then BT have provisioned your line with the correct number , and you would probably find that other BT customers can call your landline…the issue will be with incoming calls from other networks , like Sky themselves, and other networks like TalkTalk , and mobile phone network operators.

At the moment ( for example ) a Sky customer calls you, Skys network should in effect interrogate the number they dialled , and conclude it’s a ‘BT customer’ number , and send the call off to BT, when your number was ported to Sky , the same call on the Sky network would conclude that the number ( all though a BT number ) was now part of the Sky network and internally route the call to you , through Skys own equipment ( Sky customer to Sky customer )

I suspect, at the moment the call intended from a Sky customer to you , is still being internally routed through Sky , and as you are no longer connected to Sky , the call never arrives…the same can happen with some other non BT providers , if they continue to think your number is still associated with Sky , these networks send the call off to Sky network, where it gets internally routed ,instead of Sky sending it off to BT ,  but you are not on Sky network anymore , so the call disappears into Sky network and never connects to you.

It seems relatively commonplace for this type of thing to happen , and ( in your case ) Sky have no incentive to do much if anything in the way of resolving this, after all you are no longer a customer of theirs, however as BT are your provider , they should do what they can, but ultimately they cannot  access Skys network equipment and enter the required changes themselves. 
What other networks have you noticed this with , if these people that cannot get through are non BT customers then this will probably be the reason why the calls to you fail.

Another approach would be for the people who call you , but cannot get through , is to report the issue to their own network provider , so ( for example ) a current Sky customer says to them , ‘I cannot get through to this number 01***, ******, I know they are in , but they say the line doesn’t ring’ , chances are in the first place they will say ‘the fault must be with that number and not us’ , if they persist, Sky may take a closer look…obviously this can be done at the same time you have your BT fault report open

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Message 3 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

do you have FTTP (fiber to your home ) or FTTC (fibre to street cab and copper to your home)?

were you move to digital voice when you joined BT?



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Message 4 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

Hi @Annoyed15

Thanks for your post and welcome back!

I'm sorry for the problems you've been having receiving calls after moving your services to us.  We know that things can sometimes go wrong however I fully agree that this has been going on far longer than what it should have.

We'll take your details and give you a hand from here.  I have sent you a private message with instructions on how you can send us over your details and we'll look into this for you. See: Private messages

Thanks,

Robbie

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Message 5 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

I'm in a very similar position.

We applied to switch our broadband and landline from Talktalk to BT on 7 February, as FTTP had just become available in our village, and becasue Talktalk at that time did not offer a digital voice connection.  On the stated connection day, 3 weeks later, we suddenly found out that BT had not confirned the connection. In fact, the connection had been rejceted without our knowledge.

Nearly 3 months later, we have FTTP broadband through BT, but are still waiting for our landline to be ported. Despite over 20 calls to the BT very friendly customer services , and spending many hours in discussion with them, BT is still unable to provide the digital voice service using our landline number which we've been using since 1982. Their excuse is that their requests have been "rejected" each time, and that they don't how to overcome this!!  

We use receive lots of calls on our landline number, and would like to keep it.     

Does anyone have any suggestions about how we can move forward? Would a complaint to Ofcom help?  

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Message 6 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

Hi @terrspen I'm really sorry about the problems getting your number ported over, sometimes for reasons outside of our control the number can't be transferred but the moderation team will be happy to take a look to see if anything can be done to help.

I'll send you a private message in a moment so you can get in touch with your details.

Thanks

Neil

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Message 7 of 7

Re: failed number port 8 times

Thanks Neil. I've replied to your private message.

In the meantime, I've seen numerous posts on the Forum from other BT customers ("Not able to receive all incoming calls") for whom the digital voice service is not working.  

And BT posted the following in March: We’re pausing our Digital Voice plans for Consumers, while we work on a more resilient rollout (bt.c...

So, it seems that even if my landline is ported to BT, there could still be problems with it.  

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