Will plusnet provide a voip landline service?

[#1]

Under that rule, Plusnet should port my existing number to A&A when I request it.  The problem seems to be one of compliance, in that this may or may not be expedited by Plusnet, for reasons that aren't clear.

First Plusnet dont port your number to voip, its the voip supplier who request the port. When your landline is ceased it is returned to the rangeholder (the organisation who originally issued the number). In many cases this is BT , although some may have been issued by he likes of Sky or Talktalk. It is the rangeholder who is responsible for allowing the number to be ported for 30 days.

The problem doesnt appear to be Plusnet not complying, since they return the number to the rangeholder, rather it is voip suppliers who see the number showing as not-active and seem sometimes to not even attempt the port.

[#2]

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@Batphone wrote:

Apparently, it is possible to move both BB + landline number to a provider that can supply both BB and VOIP (such as A&A) and unfortunately, the way this is going, when my contract expires, I will have little choice but to do exactly that.

That is EXACTLY what I've had to do, moving my landline from Pulse8, and broadband (24 years) from Plusnet, my migration should complete next week.  Fortunately I was out of contract with Plusnet, so moving both to A&A was the obvious solution.

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[#3]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also be aware that even if your landline is with ANOTHER SUPPLIER, if Plusnet move your broadband only account to FTTP or SOGEA,  your landline WILL GET CEASED without warning !

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'Without warning' is potentially a tad disingenuous. AFAIUI, the landline provider should in principal notify the customer of any termination of service ahead of the event.

[#4]

Thanks @MisterW , I think we are homing in on the key issue at last. 

This seems to centre on the "range holder", the ease of finding out who they are and their responsibilities when it comes to releasing numbers to other providers.

What needs to happen, IMHO, is that landline numbers need to have a similar arrangement to mobile numbers, where the company holding any particular number is required to immediately release it when they receive a request, and that request process needs to be expedited by the use of a simple authorisation mechanism.

The PUK (Personal Unlocking Key) system used for mobile number transfers from one provider to another seems to work reliably and very quickly (in my experience it's always been near-instant).  If companies trying to port in landline numbers are having problems with getting hold of the status and availability of any requested number, then it seems to me that the range holders need to provide a simple mechanism to resolve this.

Is there an easy way to find out for certain who the range holder is for any given number? 

I know for sure that there is a process for VOIP providers to allocate a wide range of numbers, including geographic ones, as I went through this recently with A&A (took just a few seconds to get a new geographic number from them).  All that's needed is a quick and easy way to authorise the transfer of an allocated number from one provider to another, exactly as the PUK system has done with mobile numbers for decades.

[#5]

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@bobpullen wrote:

'Without warning' is potentially a tad disingenuous. AFAIUI, the landline provider should in principal notify the customer of any termination of service ahead of the event.

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I'm now a week into my migration, and can see that a few days ago Openreach have 'committed' to transferring my line, and simultaneously I did receive a "Sorry you're leaving" text and email from Plusnet,  but I've not had ANY communication from my landline phone supplier (Pulse8).  So even if they did now contact me, it would probably be too late if there had been a mistake or if I was going to change my mind.

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[#6]

Is there an easy way to find out for certain who the range holder is for any given number? 

Absolutely, OFCOM publish the lists here https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering/numbering-d... and there are various lookup sites e.g https://nta.co.uk/number-rangeholder-lookup/

That's basically the information that a voip provider will use to know who to address a port request to!.

What needs to happen, IMHO, is that landline numbers need to have a similar arrangement to mobile numbers, where the company holding any particular number is required to immediately release it when they receive a request, and that request process needs to be expedited by the use of a simple authorisation mechanism.

There already is a system , a supplier making a port request has to have a LoA ( letter of authority ) from the user. The problem doesnt appear to be the basic system, rather the fact that, in the past, numbers could only be ported when 'active'. When they were ceased, they immediately went into quarantine and were not available for porting. Under the new system, numbers are 'held' for 30 days before being quarantined or reused. The problem seems to be that some voip suppliers dont seem to have taken the new system onboard consistently.

We cetainly dont want to make the landline porting as complicated as mobile, that involves the current holder, the new holder and the rangeholder!! 

[#7]

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@MisterW wrote:

We cetainly dont want to make the landline porting as complicated as mobile, that involves the current holder, the new holder and the rangeholder!! 

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It may be complicated to administer, but in my experience, as a customer, it's always been very quick and painless.  I recently moved my mobile number to another provider and the PUK system has improved since I last did it. 

No need for any phone calls, just key in the PUK request code (as if making a call), the number was provided immediately by SMS and almost as quickly my new provider made that number active and issued me with a new SIM after I typed the PUK into the new provider's web page.  The whole process, from me keying in the PUK request to me getting a new SIM took slightly under 24 hours.  I can live with that sort of timescale for a number transfer.

[#8]

@JSHarris  i think you actually mean PAC code, but yes , I agree its simpler from a user point of view.

[#9]

@MisterW you're right, my error, I did indeed mean PAC! 

Using your link I do now know that my home phone number "belongs" to BT, and is in a group that BT have had since 1994.  Whether that eases the conundrum of transferring it to another provider when the time comes (i.e. when the PSTN gets turned off) I don't know.

Looking at the process used at the "port in" end, that seems to be straightforward from a customer perspective, but there is no guarantee that any request to port a number will result in the port actually happening as far as I can tell.  I think that's the somewhat unnerving thing, that a request from a new provider to have a number transferred to them may or may not be honoured in reality (for what seems to be a few reasons, some of which aren't wholly clear).

[#10]

@JSHarris the 'One touch switch' process https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/232058/statement-quick-easy-and-reliable-switch... was supposed to be used by April 2023. Problem is that TOTSCo ( the one touch switch company )  set up by Ofcom, that's meant to provide the central system, isnt  ready yet!. OFCOm, in a typical ' we've made our decisions , now dont confuse us with facts' decided that some of the regulations e.g right to port would be required from April 2023 anyway!

[#11]

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@MisterW wrote:

@JSHarris the 'One touch switch' process https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/232058/statement-quick-easy-and-reliable-switch... was supposed to be used by April 2023. Problem is that TOTSCo ( the one touch switch company )  set up by Ofcom, that's meant to provide the central system, isnt  ready yet!. OFCOm, in a typical ' we've made our decisions , now dont confuse us with facts' decided that some of the regulations e.g right to port would be required from April 2023 anyway!

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I really do wonder who regulates the regulators.  I've been doing battle with Ofgem for a while and my impression is that they are both grossly incompetent and completely toothless.  My personal impression of them is that they are well and truly in the pockets of the energy companies, and try as hard as they can to avoid addressing consumer concerns.

There's clearly a need to implement Ofcom's TOTSCo ASAP, especially given the looming deadline for the shutdown of the PSTN.  No wonder things aren't clear from Plusnet.

[#12]

Looks like we will have to wait a while for one touch switching

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/08/one-touch-uk-broadband-isp-switching-aims-to-go-live-m...

assuming that date doesn't slip

[#13]

Well, I shall be really "Td" off if I lose my PSTN phone number as I have had it since 1971 and have moved house and it went with me ,only because I was in the same area code number.Although I'm the wrong side of 80 I have managed to fix my close neighbors Phone system after she was put on Voip following a week without a landline phone due to a fault, although her Broadband was fine..The open-reach engineers (Three over a five day period, only managed to get her Panasonic cordless working (plugged into the Routers "green socket" They supplied a "free" ,more modern BT handset for the bedroom but it did not work on outgoing calls so the third "engineer" took her working Panasonic wireless handset from the kitchen moved it to the bedroom, and said the bedrooms working fine now .!. Openreach were not interested in making the installed alarm PSTN feed work with the new BT router/modem either.My neighbor is 89 and was not very pleased and worried her phones were left in a reduced working state. I thought I would try a two way adapter  plugged  in the Green socket of the Modem and connect the Base station phone and the telephone lead from the Alarm panel  and I' m glad to say it all works perfectly .I have also plugged a third phone into the green socket and its perfect with no reduced ringer or earpiece  volume.If the Open-reach guys had in depth knowledge of whats going on they could have isolated the wall splitter box from the incoming landline (in this case of my neighbors setup and,all originally put in by BT) ,then Plugged the green socket output into the distribution wall box ,and the whole house would have worked perfectly without doing anything else.Do I detect that a more thorough training is required before Open-reach are let loose on clients houses.I'm not a telephone engineer but am qualified in electronics. My neighbor account is with BT and I have spoken to our lovely Yorkshire Plusnet team and asked if my telephone has a fault will it be repaired by Open-reach and connected to Voip as in my neighbors case with BT ,I did not get a yes or no.So my question still stands.Will plusnet provide a voip landline service?

[#14]

@brianwright22 ,

My understanding is that Plusnet are not going to provide any landline telephony services when the PSTN shuts down.  No one seems to know what is going to happen to those of us using Plusnet telephony services at the moment. 

I share your concerns, as I've been trying to help clarify things for an elderly relative.  Not much consolation, but in her case (she's with BT) it seems that she is going to get a new BT Homehub, with a battery back up box and they are going to ensure that her phone and telealert fall alarm work through the Homehub.  From what I've heard, BT seem to have a workable solution already rolling out for switching their customers to VOIP.

With regard to Openreach, then based on my experience of trying to deal with them when I built this house I would say they are the singularly most disastrous company I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.  They aren't set up to deal with the public, which is fair enough given the restrictions on what they can and cannot do (all a consequence of the rules surrounding the privatisation of BT).  However, as a "house builder" they were supposed to deal directly with me for things like the moving of poles and lines, addressing poles they had on my land without any wayleaves, etc, but they just refused point-blank to communicate.

[#15]

Doesn't a chainsaw fix poles on your land without wayleave