Switch to Now Broadband and have lost old number

YorkshireTyke

Some success at last ; after engaging with Talktalk at a higher level they have succeeded in getting our original number back - I believe that they did this through Openreach, which is what OR told me that Now should / could have done (if they'd had the will).  Still a problem accessing myaccount, as my e-mail is stuck to our previous account but I cannot register our new account number as TT think its already tied to an a/c - TT are currently working on this issue. 

iniltous

As you say , some success , but Openreach had nothing to do with the allocation of a specific Talk Talk number to TT equipment ,  if Talk Talk achieved this change of number from one Talk Talk number to another Talk Talk number ( known as a renumber), by asking OR to move your connection from one piece of Talk Talk kit to another piece of Talk Talk kit ( rather than just renumbering the existing kit with the number you want) then admittedly OR may have been involved, but only by TT over complicating it.
Its likely the renumber was achieved with a few strokes on a Talk Talk keyboard , no need whatsoever for OR to be involved, or looked at another way, if  a TT customer was getting abusive  calls , called the cops, got a crime number , then asked TT to change their number  ( TT usually only do renumbers on this basis ) the work is entirely within TT control , OR are not involved, the only difference is you wanted a specific TT number , not any old random TT number,  no doubt they used the same process, you just had to get through to someone in TT who knew what was required

YorkshireTyke

The contact in Talktalk's executive office had told me that their provisioning team had engaged with OR - I queried this as our number was originally a Virgin Media number, ported to TT for us in 2014, but they insisted that they were dealing with OR to get the number back.  This matches what an OR technician outlined to me in March, when I was trying to get Now Broadband to recover the number that they had failed to port over - OR told me that once service provision bas been changed between providers it is too late for the new provider to request the old one directly to release the number (which may have been recategorised as having been 'returned' to the ISP originally allocated that number) ; OR told me that after the changeover had been effected the new provider had to request the number via OR, who would check the current allocation and request it back if not already in use (hopefully unlikely after only 14 to 28 days) - it would then be (re-)allocated to the requesting provider.  At the time this was a procedure that Now Bb said they were not able to undertake!  It may be that TT were ultimately able to effect the reallocation with a couple of keystrokes, but it is possible that they may have needed permission from OR to do so?

iniltous

TBH, because there are a couple of contributors, I thought your issue was with an number initially allocated by TT, so getting TT to reallocate their own number obviously is down to them, but that issue was someone else’s issue, it’s a little confusing when similar but not identical issues are on the same thread