do talk talk own my number

harleq1962

ive been with tiscali since they started in the uk, ive now had an email saying that talk talk will be taking over my lline in july, ive looked around for other providers but my wife would prefer to keep her email addy, i signed up years ago to transfer my line from bt to tiscali, i paid a one off payment then i had no line rental, i just tried to sign up to talk talk pro, they told me i had to take a different phone number, i protested and asked will my number change in july, they said no but i would be getting something similar to talk talk pro but without access to things like customer services?, so i said i would look for another provider and was told that tiscali own my number and if i leave any provider i got will have to supply me with another phone number, surley they cant own my phone number?, has anybody else come across this problem and how did it turn out, i would be very greatful for any help given, thanks

Colin_London

Talk Talk are being disingenuous by saying that they 'own' your number.

What they really mean is that they have limited porting arrangements with other suppliers. There is an entry hidden on their website that makes it quite clear that 'new customers' to Talk Talk will not be able to keep their phone number. This also probably means that they have no commercial arrangements in place to port numbers from them to other providers.

When Talk Talk say they are taking over your line in July they mean that they will now be billing you and taking over your contract. They do not have to force you to change numbers as the ex-Tiscali equipment you are using remains the same, they now own it, and so they have no need to make you change (and if they did try there would be uproar). However to get Talk Talk Pro their systems are set up such that you would have to move to use their original network equipment, and as you are actively choosing to change they can say that you have to have a new number.

The legal position on number portability is clear but ineffectual. This Ofcom letter to the providers is quite illuminating:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/num_port_info/links/Porting_Letter.pdf

Quote:

'Under General Condition 18 of the General Conditions of Entitlement (GC18) all providers must provide number portability on request from a subscriber but, when these porting arrangements are not already in place, the subscriber cannot readily port and has to wait for these arrangements to be made'

My highlighting!

Currently Ofcom are only insisting on operators having the necessary central database in place by the end of 2012 for landline phones, so until then you are effectively stuck with Talk Talk if you want to keep your number. Talk Talk have clearly decided that it is not in their best interests to aid number porting prior to this deadline.

The advice is never choose to move to a supplier who is not open about their porting arrangements. Unfortunately in your case you didn't actively choose to move to them....

harleq1962

thanks for your post,

bunking_off

The "central database by 2012" requirement was withdrawn earlier this year...there are no changes on the horizon.

Was your number originally issued by Tiscali, or did you port it from BT when you transferred the line? If you ported it, this is a "return to rangeholder" if you were to go back to BT and TT are on even dodgier ground.

The letter from Marina at Ofcom was aimed at getting operators to make readily available who they have porting arrangements with, in order that customers make informed migration decisions. This recognises that as porting agreements are inherently bilateral, a full web doesn't exist and with small operators your only choice could be e.g. to BT. Ofcom would take an extremely dim view of a mainstream operator that offered portability to no other providers. Suggest you go to the Ofcom website, get the contact details and log a complaint.

Colin_London

bunking_off wrote: »

The letter from Marina at Ofcom was aimed at getting operators to make readily available who they have porting arrangements with, in order that customers make informed migration decisions. This recognises that as porting agreements are inherently bilateral, a full web doesn't exist and with small operators your only choice could be e.g. to BT. Ofcom would take an extremely dim view of a mainstream operator that offered portability to no other providers. Suggest you go to the Ofcom website, get the contact details and log a complaint.

Does anyone know of ANY operator that has complied with what the letter requests, and published a clear list of the other operators with which it has porting agreements?

Call me a cynic, but surely operators would do anything to avoid making this sort of useful information easily available. Why make it any easier for your customers to decide to leave you?! Losing your phone number is a major disincentive!

harleq1962

i was originaly on bt, ive had the same number for over 12 years, and thanks again for any replies

bunking_off

Colin_London wrote: »

Does anyone know of ANY operator that has complied with what the letter requests, and published a clear list of the other operators with which it has porting agreements?

Not that I'm aware of.

I'm not defending them, but you're being a little unfair putting the lack of publishing down to not wanting to encourage customers to leave. Firstly, it's something that requires effort and doesn't earn any revenue...always a hard business case. The bigger issue, though, is one of supply chain and merger/acquisition activity.

Supply chain - With some companies such as BT, they're fully vertically integrated (ie are a service provider and have their own network) so there's only one set of portability arrangements at play. For others, though, there's a variety. Take TalkTalk. You could be on their LLU platform (hence it's their set of portability agreements that matter) or served via WLR (in which case it's BT's portability agreements that matter). End user typically doesn't know so publishing a list of TT agreements would be misleading if they're actually served by WLR.

M&A - TT are a good example of this. That I know of, they've acquired Pipex, Nildram, Tiscali, Onetel etc. Each of these had their own set of portability agreements for their numbers. Logically you'd have thought that when a company's acquired, its contracts would all be novated to the new one. In practical terms that rarely happens...e.g. Virgin still have interoperator contracts as ntl and Telewest, plus new ones in the name of Virgin. So if e.g. you're on ex-Tiscali, you'd have thought when they were acquired by TT you'd then have the ability to port to any of the providers with whom TT have portability agreements. No, because you're still covered by the Tiscali interoperator contracts until such a time that TT novate their contracts. It gets really complex because over the last few years, companies such as TT have been taking over e.g. Tiscali, who in turn probably hadn't integrated in the companies that they'd acquired. So to comply with the requirement to publish, TT would need to say "If you're ex-Tiscali you can port to...", "If you're ex Pipex you can port to..." etc. But it gets more complicated than that. Per the situation with Virgin, depending which contracts the particular bit of TT had, it could be that you can port to an ex-Telewest franchise but not ex-NTL, or vice versa.

Also, if the situation involves subsequent portability (you've already ported from A to B but now wish to move to C), all three providers need to have porting agreements.

I'm not sure, but I think because of this, the requirement was watered down to making sure that customer service staff had the correct information (clearly failing in this case!).

Not a defence, just an explanation of the issues.

TalkTalk

Hi harleq1962,

IN short if you were on Tiscali LLU prior to the rebranding of Tiscali to TalkTalk in order to retain your number you would first need to complete a Return to Donor to BT.

At present TT cannot migrate a line directly from LLU. You would have been advised a new number is required as this would be part of a new line installation. IF you complete the return to donor process you do not need to have a new line installed. The number will be migrated off Tiscali LLU equipment in the exchange back to the BT Open Reach network. Once completed this can be transferred to TT but this process can unfortunately not be completed direct.

Regards

harleq1962

thanks to everyone for all the info posted, if i were able to transfer back to bt wouldnt they try to tie me into a contract?, also what would happen if i was to try to transfer to say virging media who do not use the same equipment as bt, ive had several cold callers, sky/virgin/ bt over the phone, would bt just be able to migrate my number back to themselves?, its just a little frustrating getting told you are getting less fro more money then to be told to get the best deal available you needto change your phone number,

harleq1962

update on line, Bt phoned me today to ask me to return to Bt, i explained the bundled line etc and they said no probs i could keep my phone number, they only wanted me to sign up to a phone line, worked out to £18ish, i also asked about broadband, got and they offered me the home hub etc, then they couldnt answer me whan i asked about unlimited downloads they said it was capped at 10gig then they said they could manage 40 gig, so im now waiting for them to phone back and give me a total price of uk local and national calls with unlimited broadband, anybody got a good deal from them for rejoining?

Heinz

The base price for line rental, the Unlimited Anytime Plan and BT Total Broadband Option 3 (after initial 'come and buy me' discounts) is £11.54* + £4.99 + £24.99 = £41.52

* After deduction of £1.25/month paper-free discount and assuming you pay by direct debit.

So, see what they offer (make sure they separately quote you for the 3 separate items).