O2 doesn't recognise BT landline

Hi peeps

Ordered Post Office landline (home phone) as it has no minimum contract and the line's only needed until June.

Asked O2 before ordering whether it had to be a "BT" landline or whether it was ok to have any provider via the BT landline. The latter was confirmed.

However, I've just put a friend's number into the O2 checker who are with CPW for line rental and the O2 site doesn't accept it, saying it's not a BT landline. I'm a little worried about whether our order will go through.

The address is in an O2 LLU area so that's no issue, but what I'm wondering is whether we've been wrongly advised by O2.

Does it HAVE to be a BT landline, and why does it matter provided it's the BT line which is being carried by the BT network to the same local exchange?

Cheers

(forgot to login)

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Sep-09 00:07:29)

CPW isn't the post office.

OK but what I'm getting at is whether anyone knows if there will be a problem with the post office having the line rental even though it's the same BT line.

Reason for asking rather than waiting till weekend for line to be connected is that we can probably cancel if so.

I had a PO phone contract when I migrated to O2 a year ago. Unless they've changed their rules since then, you should be OK. The PO merely lease the line from BT, so effectively it's just a billing change.

Anonymous2

It will be fine.

There is one thing that will almost certainly happen though which might worry you. That is that because it is a BT line the number you are given will almost certainly have been used before, and the BT databases will hold the line length and ADSL capability for wherever that number was in use before.

It takes a few days up to a few weeks for the databases to update to reflect your location.

O2 uses those BT databases to see what service they can offer you. It should be correct wrt LLU or not, but could be very wrong wrt potential speed. So you could get far less than the estimate, or you may not even be offered LLU, only O2 Access. (Which you don't want). So you may have to wait a few days to see what the BT databases change to.

Two places you can check the BT databases, with possibly different results! By putting your number or post code into BT.com broadband availablity checker for BT Total Broadband, and by trying the BT Wholesale one.

Both can be wildly inaccurate! They both talk about 4Mbps on mine, when I get well over 6.5Mbps.

CPW lines are normally unbundled and are not a BT based phone line so thats why the checker did not accept it, post office phone lines ARE BT based so you have no worry.

OK that's reassuring, thanks for the info folks!!

Was on BT with O2 and moved over to Post Office for line rental and had no problems whatsoever, was at work when the changeover happened so didn't notice anything at all and been running ok ever since. (6 months)

As long as your phone provider is using BT WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) then there should be no issues. I know people who have phone service with Sky, TalkTalk and Post Office who have broadband service from O2.