Tesco Internet Phone Service Stopping -April 27th 2010

overcharged

yeah I have the Tesco Internet Phone Adaptor and Tesco INternet Phone number on all my business cards, which cost me £130, and I will have to modify every graphic file on my website that shows my phone number, and then I will have to modify the phone number in all the business directories I'm in. Nightmare.

have written to Voicehost based on people in forums saying they might be able to port the number. No idea of costs or anything - at first glance i couldn't see anything on their website about this service being provided. I'd prefer to see something 'in black and white' prior to entering some contract with them.

PTM2

Sadly it seems that OFCOM, which really should be protecting consumers from issues such as this, has failed and let us all down.

OFCOM claim that their, "general duties should be to further the interests of citizens and of consumers. Meeting these two duties is at the heart of everything we do."

You would have thought that helping consumers keep a telephone number would be something they should be fundamentally able to do, but apparently not. Instead they seem more interested in headline grabbing cat fights with Sky, ISP's and the Digital Economy Bill. Complaints about OFCOM should be directed to your local MP.

bunking_off

I can't say much for commercial confidentiality reasons, but suffice to say all may not be lost and a solution may be in the pipeline.

What I would say is if it happens it happens...there are people with no obligation to help pulling out the stops to try to make it so (including Ofcom facilitating things)...but no amount of reading of the riot act to Tesco is going to make the blindest bit of difference to whether they succeed.

overcharged

bunking_off wrote: »

I can't say much for commercial confidentiality reasons, but suffice to say all may not be lost and a solution may be in the pipeline.

What I would say is if it happens it happens...there are people with no obligation to help pulling out the stops to try to make it so (including Ofcom facilitating things)...but no amount of reading of the riot act to Tesco is going to make the blindest bit of difference to whether they succeed.

Fingers crossed! Please post any updates on a solution here once it is okay to do so. Will check regularly and cross my toes too!

Mike_Rawlins

I have had a bit more E-mail ping pong with Tesco / Freshtel and it seems that OFCOM are not really able to help.

For you to be able to move the number to a new provider the 'owner' of the number (Freshtel) needs to forward it to the new provider, Freshtel never lose ownership of the number they just make sure it is forwarded to your new supplier.

Freshtel are apparently closing UK operations so there will be no facility to offer forwarding as they won't have any staff or equipment over here.

I mailed Tesco customer services as I felt I had exhausted all the options with Freshtel and asked them to get a senior manager to look in to it and respond. All I got was an E-mail saying that they had forwarded my E-mail on to, yes you guessed it, the CS team at Tesco Internet Phone / Freshtel.

I am resigned to losing the number and being out of pocket now, but I would have thought that Tesco would have managed this far better than they are doing.

bunking_off

All of your information is correct Mike, the question now is whether the race is won to rehost the entirety of Freshtel's number blocks onto a "lifeboat" network before their system is closed down this week. The normal lead-time for making such changes is months, hence my uncertainty regarding success.

All Tesco's role in providing the service is/was to resell a "whitelabel" service provided by Freshtel. Freshtel are closing their service, and selling the kit that made up their network. Arguably Tesco should find an alternate provider to continue their service, but as above if the original network that hosts the numbers doesn't exist, the UK number portability solution won't work. The only solution is to find a new host for the number ranges, but Tesco weren't the only reseller of Freshtel services so couldn't make unilateral choices.

overcharged

I've been advised by Voicehost that the Tesco Internet Phone numbers are being reassigned to VoiceHost's network.

Can anyone confirm the validity of this please? Surely they wouldn't have made such a statement without being sure?

bunking_off

Couldn't possibly comment (walks away whistling).....

overcharged

bunking_off wrote: »

Couldn't possibly comment (walks away whistling).....

:rotfl:

Need to get my mits on an ATA now!

North-East_Quine

I can't seem to get logged in to my Tesco Internet Phone? Is anyone else having problems? Have they stopped the service already?