Porting landline problem

[#1]

Hi,

I moved to FTTP with Plusnet last week, previously I was FTTC with Plusnet and landline with BT.

I filled out a port request form with A&A last week and said that BT was the previous landline owner, however it came back today to say the port failed. After being on the phone for ages with BT they have told me that Plusnet took complete control of the line last week.

Should I have put Plusnet as the landline owner and not BT? I'm very confused, it wasn't aware that Plusnet would take control of the landline even though it is being ceased.

Cheers,

Paul.

Moderator's note:
Typo corrected, see https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/Porting-landline-problem/m-p/2019051#M39351

[#2]

@kissinuk 

Have you spoken to A&A Support?

They are generally pretty good at sorting out posting problems.

Brian

[#3]

They've told me to speak to BT. However BT are adamant it's not their problem as Plusnet now have my landline even if it's ceased. Very confused! 

[#4]

I’d suggest going back to A&A as number portability is gaining provider led so they should be resolving this. 

[#5]

@kissinuk 

The only other case of A&A being unable to port in a phone number, that I remember, was documented here -

        Landline number porting rejected 

TLDR - that case was finally concluded by getting  Voipfone  to port in the ceased phone number.

I wonder if  @Peter-J  has any words of wisdom for you, after is ordeal with A&A ?

.

[#6]

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@kissinuk wrote:

I moved to FTTP with Plusnet last week, previously I was FTTP with Plusnet and landline with BT.l.

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Can you explain this one please?

Your BT landline service was presumably provided via the old wired PSTN service.. Plusnet FTTP will have come via a new separate fibre service, unless of course there is a typo in your original post?

If your post is correct, as I understand it, you should have been able to cancel the BT service without any involvement with Plusnet, the two services are not be interdependant.

On the other hand if you were on FTTC with Plusnet and upgraded to Plusnet FTTP, that would presumably automatically cancel the BT phone service, not transfer it to Plusnet. You can't 'transfer' a no longer available PSTN service

[#7]

That's correct we were on FTTC with Plusnet and landline with BT. We then upgraded to FTTP with Plusnet which then cancelled my BT phone.

BT are saying their logs show that my entire service was moved to Plusnet on the 28th August and they can't port my number away.

[#8]

@kissinuk 

To avoid confusion I have corrected your original post.

[#9]

Hi, in my case the porting request was being rejected in error. Both A&A and Voipfone use third party porting services, but A&A essentially refused to follow up with theirs the reason for the rejection. Voipfone asked me to confirm that the number should be available and then emailled their provider who in turn contacted BT/Openreach to query the rejection. That intervention led to the number successfully being ported a couple of hours later.

[#10]

A&A have now given me a Client Letter of Authority form that I've filled out for them. They told me to put Plusnet as the Current Retailer even though nobody seems certain if it's with them or BT. Let's see if this works...

[#11]

So this is the result of the LOA from A&A 😞

But I'm afraid even the LoA form has not worked as the number cannot be found in service.  I'm afraid there is nothing else we can do.

How could I have lost the number if I'm supposed to have 30 days to port?

[#12]

as the number cannot be found in service

Well, of course it can't , its in quarantine! It seems whoever A & A are now using for porting just can't be bothered to handle quarantined numbers which often require manual contact with the losing rangeholder porting desk ( BT group in this case )  

[#13]

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@kissinuk wrote:

How could I have lost the number if I'm supposed to have 30 days to port?

---

@kissinuk 

If I were you, have another read of the topic I linked to in Reply #5

and see whether (as in that topic) Voipfone have more determination in recovering your phone number.

While Voipfone isn't your first choice provider, they are one of the best.

Once your recovered phone number is on VoIP and not muddled in with another service or lost in space with Openreach, it SHOULD be easier to at a later date to move the number again from Voipfone to A&A or other provider, if you didn't want to stay.

.

[#14]

A&A's provider is called Magrathea, but I could only communicate with an A&A sales guy that didn't understand the number porting process and kept telling me the line would have to be reinstated. I repeatedly asked him to obtain more detailed technical information from Magrathea about the rejection, but I couldn't tell if he actually contacted them and also received a similar reply: "there is nothing further that can be done. Sorry."

In my case, it became clear that this was not accurate because as soon as Voipfone's provider queried the porting rejection, it was successfully carried out.

On reflection, I think that many of the companies involved should have collaborated to put in place a more reliable and transparent process for landline number porting.

[#15]

Sadly it is probably a training issue or a compliance with training issue.

I suspect that there are different processes for taking over an in service number compared to a quarantined number.  Some in volved might not know that a supplied number could be either an assume that it is in service ... or A&A have asked for an-in-service inward port, which is understandably rejected.

Magrathea is a specialist provider, one would hope that they know what they are doing ... if asked correctly.