retaining original tel number

Am thinking of moving to Sky from Virgin Media and the Sky forum makes pretty depressing reading concerning retention of the customers original tel number with several people given a new number in spite of being promised that they can keep their old number. The insructions advise customers to keep their Virgin contract going until the Sky Talk telephone is on line (which can be expensive). My question is this; because you have to give Virgin 30 days notice to cancel; for a time the property will have two telephone lines, one from Sky and one from Virgin, using the same wires in the property. Will this cause any problems? Has anyboby else done this and did they manage to retain their old number. Many thanks.

"using the same wires in the property"

The virgin phone comes in over the Virgin local loop
The Sky phone comes in over the Openreach (BT) local loop the two are not connected.

So that is not the problem.

Retaining is down the porting agreements that Sky and Virgin Media have between themselves, and no requirement to offer this.

Who originally allocated the number - Virgin, Sky, BT?

I have had this number for a considerable time; first with BT then Talk Talk and then Virgin Media and I'm hoping that Sky will keep the same number. My original query was, whilst I am with Sky and VM then if someone calls my number then it will travel to my house over both the Sky copper wire and the VM co-axial cable and over the same INTERIOR wiring in my house to the hand set. Will this cause any kind of compatability problem?.

Sorry, I don't understand the problem, but if BT allocated the number originally, you should be able to return the phone line to BT and keep your number. I don't know if you can go direct from Virgin to Sky and keep it though.

Hi jimbo, regarding your querie about interior wiring, I assume you are refering to extensions wired from the existing Virgin master socket?

If you do have extensions wired (directly) from Virgin's socket (i.e. not just plugged in, but wired off the back) then you will lose service on these when the service is ported accross to BT's line, as this is a different master socket.

However, you may find an Openreach installer/engineer visits on behalf of Sky. If this is the case you just need to ask him to fit BT/Sky?openreach NTE next to Virgin's NTE (master) and piggyback the extensions. Ask nicely and he'll do it no problem

I've just gone from virgin media to sky (sky line rental/BB/TV) and i took my number from virgin with no problems. My number was created by virgin media (well Telewest now owned by virgin). I rung virgin and sky up to confirm it would be fine to move they said it was so i went ahead the engineer cam to fit my new line for sky started the port and it was done in about 10 seconds. He was surprised said it usually takes a few hours lol. So i can clearly say for me at least it was very painless and now saving 30 quid a month so all happy.

Ash

VM are trying to get an extra month out of you. Just get Sky to use your existing number and on the day of the change the number will be ported from VM to Sky.

I don't think there is any way in the world that the same number can be used by 2 telcos. Hence the statement "over both the Sky copper wire and the VM co-axial cable " I believe is impossible.

My thanks to everyone who has replied to my original query. I am still a bit perplexed concerning the way internal telephone wiring works. My master socket (NTE5 Linebox) is in the hall and when VM came to set the phone up they bought the phone cable from the box on the external wall into the lounge. I expected them to drill a hole in the wall between the lounge and the hall and connect the VM tel' cable into the BT master socket. The engineer said he didn't need to do that (which was a relief to my missus !!) and then proceeeded to connect the VM cable to an extension socket in the lounge and everything, including all other extentions, worked ok. Anyway I shall follow your advice and call VM and Sky and tell them both about my concerns about my original phone number.

I think i know what you mean ive seen that done before they've used the previous BT master socket but connected to there own cable instead of fitting u another master. When you call sky you'll need to tell them about this so they can get openreach to come and rewire youre master back upto the openreach network. (I had to have a new line fitted to the openreach network because out original BT line was ripped out 16 year ago when we first got cable) hope this helps you a little more.

Ash