Weird problem with phone after transfer from TalkTalk to Vodafone

ColinD1

This transfer seemed to go fine, upgraded to fibre to the cabinet at the same time.

Faster broadband, working phone and charges being accrued to Vodafone (and bills paid). Many received calls.

However, had a couple of people calling who claim we are not answering. We can't know how many have tried and not told us (consistent for them) one from THREE mobile, the other one from another landline.

Vodafone performed a thorough line check which revealed no problems so we assumed it was a caller problem, now it has happened again.

TalkTalk are refusing to acknowledge the change and claim they are still providing service and annoyed because I have stopped direct debit.

Any ideas? or similar experiences.

iniltous

If your number was supposed to have been ported to Vodafone from TT, and you get some incoming  calls but not all, it suggests the port has not been done correctly, it may also explain why TT think you are still TT customer.
First thing to do is dial 17070 and confirm the number read back is correct , then try whatever the customer service number is for TT and Vodafone ( it could be 150 , but doesn’t have to be ) obviously depending on who answers pretty much confirms who is providing phone service.
It may be impossible to know for sure who screwed up, Vodafone not following process , or TT not following instructions, but if TT are still routing calls to your number rather than porting them, anyone calling from TT or a company that use TT wholesale won’t get through ( assuming Vodafone turn out to be your telephony provider ) 

ColinD1

Thanks for that. I will check who is supplying the landline to my friend. Had a long chat to Vodafone via the website. They confirmed there was no barring and could not find a fault. Asked them to escalate then left hanging and they did not send the log as requested. I will try your suggestions. I know Vodafone is seeing and charging for the calls I make. Because I changed to Fibre to the cabinet I know things have changed and they must be delivering the landline. So I presume the calls routed by TalkTalk are going down the old copper pipe from the exchange to the cabinet! and they are expecting to paid for that service!

Good to understand at least it gives some chance of getting resolution.

ColinD1

Confirmed landline was Post Office which is part of TalkTalk. Anyone know how THREE access a service that takes them to Landlines? GifGaf (EE?) work.

Waiting for reply from Vodafone second tier response who are questioning OpenReach.

Will post again if it has been resolved. Again thanks to iniltous as I wouldn't have tied the two problems together so soon and would have just been asking why some people could not get through to me of Vodafone and why are you still trying to charge me to TalkTalk.

iniltous

Usually , if the ‘new’ company taking over the physical Openreach connection follow the correct process, the old company are automatically advised that you are leaving them, and at that point the old provider should send you a ‘sorry you are leaving’ letter or email ( the idea being if you were being moved without your knowledge or consent, you can halt the process , this is called ‘slamming’ ) , did you ever get that letter or email from TT ?,
 If you didn’t get that letter/email , the chances are Vodafone didn’t follow the  process and although the connection was moved to Vodafone , because TT were never advised you were leaving , they continue to bill you

ColinD1

Does the email come out before or after the transfer? The reason is I attempted to move in January to the Post Office. They phoned me up a couple of days before the transfer claiming I had requested the wrong type of transfer, when refuted this they claimed there was no capacity to use fibre to the cabinet and offered to carry on with copper to the property. I refused as I wanted a faster service as well as cheaper. I then was more diligent with my research and discovered for Post Office read TalkTalk. I quizzed Vodafone about their actual availability of fibre to the cabinet before making my order. I assume from this that the letter should come out post transfer as I never had one for either. The failed seize for the Post Office is recorded. Is it a flaw in the system as the physical change is made at the cabinet rather than the exchange? Vodafone have raised the problem with OpenReach and said it would take a few days to sort it out. Don't know how the management works, as I think about it TalkTalk are routing a fraction of my friends calls to the cabinet where they are ringing, but I can't hear them.
I am the ex customer not their trouble shooter.

iniltous

When you start a migration process, it designed to take  around 10-14 days, part of the reason for this , is to give your old provider time to contact you, they are not allowed to call and try and persuade you to not to leave, the letter or email saying ‘ sorry to see you go’ also includes instructions if you didn’t ask a new company to take over the line.
 There obviously needs to be enough time to cancel the migration if it’s an unscrupulous company slamming the customer without their knowledge, so yes the email should come before the transfer, within the first few days of the new company instigating the migration, so the majority of the 10-14 days are to allow for you to contact them if indeed you never asked for a migration in the first place.
If whoever you are with is delivering your ADSL from the exchange, but  as well as moving ISP, you also want to upgrade to VDSL which is cabinet based , and both to be done simultaneously, then it’s not a flaw in the system , obviously work in the exchange is required to switch you between providers , especially if one of the providers is LLU (like TT) and work is also required in a FTTC ‘cabinet’ , to connect you to VDSL.
VDSL capacity is nothing to do with individual ISPs, they don’t have a set amount of ports each, any spare port can be used by any partaking ISP, but sometimes if a cab has few or no slots, some ISP’s  could move you from the competitors ADSL to their own ADSL , and then wait until a spare VDSL port becomes available and then move ADSL to VDSL, so although you expect a single step migration, it takes two stages.

ColinD1

Would the first abortive attempt not give rise to a letter because moving from TalkTalk to the Post Office was only a billing change. The "Post Office" engineer responsible for sending out my router realising that this would not fulfil my requirement and telling me I had ordered the wrong thing. I being semi literate on these matters and not entirely green questioned him on the availability of fibre optic capacity at the cabinet. He said they had no capacity and as I was not happy to just change provider without an increase in capacity he cancelled the order.

Before I placed the Vodafone order I obtained reassurance they could provide the improved line speed consistent with fibre to the cabinet.

I am now questioning how are phone services work. I never worked in civil comms so my understanding goes back to STD and Strowger exchanges. I have a vague understanding of how the mobility of mobile phones is controlled. Now I am confused as to how my number is being routed as it depends on the network it is coming from. If from TalkTalk it goes to one place (and is lost) and if from someone else it gets through to me. This looks more akin to the mobile system rather than the classic telephone exhange? Or is it the case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

iniltous

The sorry you are leaving letter is automatic, and doesn’t take into account that you could be moving between company’s that are using the same wholesale provider , so you should expect notification regardless of who you are moving to, the letter is in large part to stop you being moved against your will, as the ‘new’ company instigates the move, if there were no ‘check’ on this, a company could basically move anyone they wanted onto their network and the first the customer would know about it would be when the new company bill arrived , obviously in reality they probably would need to speak to you to obtain bank details etc, but a typical slamming attempt would be, they call you, you say you will think about it, they say OK take your time, but issue an order anyway.

Moving from TT to the PO should have still generated the letter , if it didn’t , it suggests the PO raised the wrong sort of order, and realised that fact at some point, quite often errors are made by the ‘new’ company using the wrong ‘product’ at order entry, in effect ordering a new line , not a migration
Number port was never possible on ‘Strowger’ ’, but even ‘BT's’ digital exchanges are now old hat, and will be history shortly , and relatively new providers who use LLU ( Sky and TT ) likely use IP telephony not ‘processor controlled switches’ , Number Port which seemed to be something of a black art anyway , is even more convoluted, but my understanding is, if someone calls a number that has been ported, in the first call set up, the number range holders network is contacted, this network rather than setting up the call ,indicates they don’t have the number and  redirects the call to the network the number has been ported to, the network that has the imported number then  sets up the call path, these 2 attempts take milliseconds , so the caller notices no delay.
As far as the network with the ported number , they set their own equipment to have calling line identification of that imported number , so when they make an outgoing call the ported number shows as the CLI presented to the person answering the call, it’s the fact that these networks need to talk to each other, and the network that ‘lost’ the number is still involved in the routing of calls to it, that causes issues if it isn’t done correctly

ColinD1

Haven't heard back from Vodafone and as far as I know the problem still exists. There was a question about my Apple Id and either they could not deal with a landline to send a code by voice or it was routed by TalkTalk to the black hole. Impossible to know how many times this is happening. Luckily one important call to confirm a delivery did get through, but impossible to say if there are any others lost.

ColinD1

Bank Holiday Monday

Just had a call from the TalkTalk Chief Executive office in reply to email of 25 March. The explanation was that it was due  to an earlier abortive attempt to move to Post Office Telecom masking the Vodafone move.

They have promised to sort everything so my phone should be fully working and the billing corrected by the 17th.

I will update again when everything is working and I have received the money I am owed.