BT "lost" landline number in Fibre order

Would be grateful if anyone knows the best route to an escalation for a family member which is turning out to be a complete nightmare.

Their phone and broadband was with TalkTalk FTTC before Christmas and they ordered a new BT Fibre package - at the time of ordering (before Christmas) BT sales assured that the phone number could be ported across to Fibre etc, and neighbours in the same road had recently had Fibre installed and manged to keep their landline number.

Order then got delayed by a few months due to Covid.

Last month the new fibre service went live however the old copper line and broadband with TalkTalk had not been ceased and instead BT had supplied a new phone number with the Fibre, so they were paying for two separate services which was not supposed to happen.

Called BT who said it was not possible for the old landline number to be transferred to the Fibre digital voice, however they could transfer this to a copper package and the old number would be retained.

This occured yesterday however a new phone number has been issued and the number that was supposed to have come across from TalkTalk is no longer operative. They were asked to confirm this multiple times and they provided assurance the old number would not get lost.

After numerous phone calls with support yesterday they are claiming it is with the BT renumbering department and should be resolved within 14 days however thus far everything they've said would happen hasn't and I'm keen to get this escalated before the number gets completely lost.

Any advice?

Just keep pushing it with BT.

I was "slammed" a couple of years ago by Talktalk. One day, out of the blue, my phone and broadband were cut over from Plusnet to Talktalk, and the landline changed to a different phone number, in somebody else's name too.

Plusnet were able to sort it out, and get my old number reinstated, but it took about three weeks. Annoyingly, I had to create a new account with Plusnet, and they weren't able to copy across my referrals, so on every renewal I have to remind them of this to get a discount.

In future I intend to move my number over to a VOIP provider so at least the phone number is safe.

Talk Talk lost a friends number, he never got it back. When I dropped my landline I cancelled the line by porting the number to sipgate and the ADSL and line went dead and Sipgate have my number which is used on a 4G router. When I get FTTP I will only get the data and leave the number with sipgate. BT do not know how to get fibre and an old landline number to work together either let alone talk talk.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/bt-broadban...

In reply to a post by kommando:

BT do not know how to get fibre and an old landline number to work together either let alone talk talk.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/bt-broadban...

Don't they?

Some discussion at contact stage to ensure it would transfer, then in advance of my FTTP install the VOIP handset was semi-active - I could dial out but incoming was still on copper. As soon as FTTP went live, call were routed to teh VOIP handset on my old BT PSTN number.

Personally, I would give up on BT and contact Andrews and Arnold to see if they can port the TT number over to their VoIP service. Cancel the BT Fibre digital voice package (if you can) and stick with the FTTP package for the duration of the contract.

I have just had a complete nightmare with a port and renumber due to Openreach being unable to follow their own process and I doubt I would have got it resolved if I hadn't been with Andrews and Arnold

Thanks for the replies everyone - I hadn't actually thought about the AAISP number port route. I'll consider that as an option in a weeks time.

I've spoken to BT again who claim it has not been released by TalkTalk yet but should be within 2 weeks, so at that point it ought to work.

In the meantime I've sent off a letter to their head office complaints department - can't do any harm.

I suspect they didn't invoke the migration process properly with TalkTalk which is why all this trouble has occurred.

In reply to a post by timandhaylea:

Personally, I would give up on BT and contact Andrews and Arnold to see if they can port the TT number over to their VoIP service. Cancel the BT Fibre digital voice package (if you can) and stick with the FTTP package for the duration of the contract.

I have just had a complete nightmare with a port and renumber due to Openreach being unable to follow their own process and I doubt I would have got it resolved if I hadn't been with Andrews and Arnold

How fast were AAISP able to port it over?

10 days (limited by Openreach), but as is usual with AAISP, I didn't have to go chasing them to make sure everything was going to happen to the timescales they advised.

Reading through their Trouble Reports log where they paste in their online chat sessions with OR make for interesting reading - especially our initial attempt to port and renumber.

Did they sort it?

Not yet - in theory it should be getting sorted on Monday. If it hasn't been fixed then I'll try porting it across to AAISP VoIP.

The BT customer facing staff are always quite helpful to be fair but they make assurances that their back office staff fail to deliver, you would think they had got a grip of it by now. Every time I have dealt with them it is never straight forward with any matter.