Moved House, Plusnet can't move old phone number

imsi

I have moved house and requested to Plusnet that they move my existing phone line and broadband to the new house.
It seems that their requests keep getting rejected by BT and that there is a strong chance I will lose the phone number that I have had for the last 26 years.
They have connected me with a different number, are going to connect the broadband service, then when that is done request my old number again.
I have been warned that it is likely I will lose my old number.

Is there any action I can take to make it more likely to move with me? Is this problemcommon?
Although it is not a business line, I've dealt with thousands of people over the years who know to contact me via the old number and it would have a catastrophic effect on my work.
Is the fault with BT as Plusnet suggest or might they be covering for mistakes of their own. Can Offtel do anything.

Any help or advice? Please!

money_saving_matt

If you PM me your phone number, old postcode and new postcode & house/flat number I can check what Openreach's systems say regarding number retention at your new address.

Typically the answer to the "can I keep my number" question is based on whether the same exchange serves both your old and new premises, but there are other factors involved as well.

macman

As above-is it on the same exchange? If not, you can't. If it is, there should be no issue.
However I wouldn't play the 'catastrophic effect on my business' card, as if you are using a residential contract for business purposes then you are technically in breach of contract.
However if you have already been reconnected on a new number, then your old one will have been recycled and you almost certainly won't get it back.

money_saving_matt

Both properties are served by the same exchange so it should be possible to retain your number.

Your old number is not listed as live at either address, but I can see a working PSTN line at your new address with a number ending in 25 (which I assume is the line Plusnet have installed for you with a new number).

Your old number is not listed as live under either address, and it is originally a BT-allocated number so what Plusnet should be able to do now is request a renumber on your new line and specifically request your old number as part of that request. If they try and "browse" for your old number they won't see it as it will be marked as maturing and hence hidden from them (and other CPs). However, they should be able to enter a specific number which, if spare, will be used. If their attempt to request your old number fails they'll need to raise a bridge case with Openreach to have it marked as spare.

Ultimately there is no technical reason why you won't be able to get your old number back, your ability to do so is governed by how helpful/knowledgable the Plusnet operator is when you speak to them.

macman

So how would this arise matt?
Did the OP not request a number move at the initial time of ordering perhaps?

imsi

macman wrote: »

So how would this arise matt?
Did the OP not request a number move at the initial time of ordering perhaps?

I requested at time of move. The initial request was rejected, I believe, because the previous owners of our new house had not notified their telephone company that they were moving. I (and Plusnet) don't know why subsequent requests have been rejected as BT won't discuss with a 3rd party.
What is particularly galling is that I have only moved 1 street away, less than 100 metres as the crow flies.

money_saving_matt

Change of Addresses are built as two separate orders within Openreach's systems - one order for the cease at the old property and one for the provide at the new property. Most CPs request CoA as Openreach-managed, that is, they only submit the provide order and Openreach build the cease order and tie the two dates together.

If the provide order rejects or gets cancelled, Openreach's systems are supposed to cancel the cease order so the EU isn't left without service. What happens from time to time is that the provide fails but the cease is *not* cancelled, so the EU ends up losing their service at the old property and not receiving service in the new property. In this scenario the CP can't raise a new CoA order as there is no live service to move any more, so they raise a standard provide order at the new property for a new number and tell the EU that "it might not be possible to get their number back", usually because they don't understand or know where to look to verify if the old number can be retrieved.

If the new provide is submitted as WLR (and the new property is served by the same exchange), then it's always possible to retain the old number if it was originally allocated to BT (which this one was), as when the old line ceased the number simply gets marked as spare and put in the maturing list of numbers at the exchange.

If the new provide is WLR but the old number was *not* a BT number then upon cessation it would have returned to the original rangeholder (e.g. Virgin Media) and it's not possible to reserve these numbers as rangeholder <-> rangeholder moves are part of the porting process, and you can only port numbers if they are live.

I suspect what has happened here is more Openreach's fault rather than Plusnet's, although you are of course reliant on Plusnet to sort it out for you. Now you've got a new line with a new number, all they have to do is submit a simple renumber order and request your old number, which should currently be spare.

imsi

money_saving_matt wrote: »

I suspect what has happened here is more Openreach's fault rather than Plusnet's, although you are of course reliant on Plusnet to sort it out for you. Now you've got a new line with a new number, all they have to do is submit a simple renumber order and request your old number, which should currently be spare.

Thanks Matt.
Plusnet are saying they will migrate my broadband first before requesting my old number again. Is there a reason they cant do that now?

imsi

My broadband has been done today, Plusnet have contacted BT to request my old number and have been told that...... My old number has been reserved by another service provider and I have lost it !!
How this has happened I don't know.
Can Money_Saving_Matt check if the number is still live or not?
I just do't trust much of what Plusnet are telling me any more.

money_saving_matt

Hi Imsi,

I highly doubt that your number has been reserved by another CP (in order to do this they would have to explicitly request your number, which there is no good reason for any other CP to do). I suspect that what happened is that they tried to reserve your number and it failed with a message similar to "DN not available for reservation", and they jumped to the immediate (but wrong) conclusion that they could not reserve it because someone else has. To further back this up, if you dial your old number you receive the "number unavailable" message which you would not hear if it was assigned to another line.

If this is the error message they received then to resolve the issue they need Openreach to ensure that the number is marked as spare in all the appropriate systems (in this case, one called CSS and another called LIMS). To do this, they'd need to raise a Bridge Case with Openreach which is something that any any CP can do. Only once this is done (and Openreach have fixed it, which typically takes 5 days), then they'll most likely be able to reserve your number.

Matt

imsi

My old number was successfully moved over today :j
Many thanks to money_saving_matt for his advice.:beer:
3 times I was told that I would have to accept a different number but largely thanks to this thread I refused to accept that and demanded they go back and try to resolve the problem.
The final explanation given was that my number had indeed been reserved - by Plusnet, for me. They had to release the number so they themselves could request it successfully. Frankly this seems bizarre to me, but I am just grateful that my phone number has moved house with me in the end.