Who provides our phone line?

dholei39

When I moved into my house 2 years ago, I brought Virgin's cable and phone service with me. The property had a BT line, but it was inactive (we checked) and left it untouched.

A couple of days ago I was doing some cleaning and accidentally plugged the cable into the BT phone socket rather than the Virgin one (they're adjacent to each other). I noticed straight away as the dial tone was slightly different to what I was used to.

I did a quick test and it was allowing incoming and outgoing calls on a completely different phone number to any I've had. I dialled 150 to see if I could find out who the provider is, but got a message of "Sorry, you can't call that number from this line".

I've spoken to BT who say that there is no active line with them at my address and the phone number in question was used in an account with them at a different address some time ago, but the account was closed. Sky say the number doesn't match the address and Ofcom tell me there's no way of knowing who the provider is / was without calling all of them until I find the right one!

It seems strange to have found someone supplying a service to my home, and yet not be able to find out who the provider is. Ofcom's advice was just to leave it and don't use it. But I hate the idea of leaving it unresolved in case it comes back to bite. As it was inactive when we moved in something must have happened since.....maybe someone tried to activate the number nearby but there was an error at the exchange pointing it at our property instead. Could it be that someone else as a result had to be given a new number, and the mistake pointing it at our house never rectified - would that even be possible??

Any thoughts anyone on how I can resolve this?

Thanks

JJ_Egan

BT Open Reach provides your phone line .
As line is not active no provider supply's a service .
Your current service uses the VM cable as opposed to BT OR line .

AndyPK

wait a week and see if it is still active

iniltous

dholei39 wrote: »

When I moved into my house 2 years ago, I brought Virgin's cable and phone service with me. The property had a BT line, but it was inactive (we checked) and left it untouched.

A couple of days ago I was doing some cleaning and accidentally plugged the cable into the BT phone socket rather than the Virgin one (they're adjacent to each other). I noticed straight away as the dial tone was slightly different to what I was used to.

I did a quick test and it was allowing incoming and outgoing calls on a completely different phone number to any I've had. I dialled 150 to see if I could find out who the provider is, but got a message of "Sorry, you can't call that number from this line".

I've spoken to BT who say that there is no active line with them at my address and the phone number in question was used in an account with them at a different address some time ago, but the account was closed. Sky say the number doesn't match the address and Ofcom tell me there's no way of knowing who the provider is / was without calling all of them until I find the right one!

It seems strange to have found someone supplying a service to my home, and yet not be able to find out who the provider is. Ofcom's advice was just to leave it and don't use it. But I hate the idea of leaving it unresolved in case it comes back to bite. As it was inactive when we moved in something must have happened since.....maybe someone tried to activate the number nearby but there was an error at the exchange pointing it at our property instead. Could it be that someone else as a result had to be given a new number, and the mistake pointing it at our house never rectified - would that even be possible??

Any thoughts anyone on how I can resolve this?

Thanks

It's possible that the unused OR cable pair from your home to the exchange was always intact ( but 'inactive') , an order for a customer in your general area (someone off the same PCP, the green street cabinet) is processed and the cable pair to your home is partially used for that new customer, at some point in the near future an engineer will go to the street cabinet and disconnect the service from the cable pair that goes to your home and connect it to another cable pair that goes to the property that requires the service, at this point this mystery service disappears from your socket and is 'provided' at the correct location
PCP is a primary cross connection point, a flexibility point where E side cable pairs from the exchange can be connected (jumpered) to D side (distribution) cable pairs.


So , in short, it's probably a coincidence that your line has become 'live' just as you accidentally plugged a phone into the socket, but it will probably disappear in a few days when the engineer visits the cabinet to complete someone else's order

dholei39

JJ_Egan wrote: »

BT Open Reach provides your phone line .
As line is not active no provider supply's a service .
Your current service uses the VM cable as opposed to BT OR line .

I understand my current service uses the VM cable. My question on here was because while BT say there is no active line, someone is providing a service as the BT line clearly is active at the moment as I can make and receive calls on it (and it shows a different phone number to the one I know as mine).

Katgrit

I'm not saying it'll work but try using the Openreach test line. The number is 17070. There might be an option on there that tells you.

dholei39

Katgrit wrote: »

I'm not saying it'll work but try using the Openreach test line. The number is 17070. There might be an option on there that tells you.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've just tried that. It just gives me an ID, which is the same as the phone number I get on caller display if I call another number from the line....no other options unfortunately.

force_ten

as above i would say that the old line that served your property previously, has been activated to provide service to somebody in your general area and the line will be diverted at the street cab or the distribution point near your house to the property of the person that has placed the order for a new line