Does anyone understand the number porting of landlines?

ColinD1

Nothing of use. Around 3 hours late with their call. They suggested the three numbers were barring me and suggested they sent an engineer out. The handler realised she was out of her depth and put me through to their tech 2 team. The same guy I spoke to 2 months ago I think. Putting it through Easy Switch Team............. Call back on Tuesday as I was supposed to be away until then.

Problem with a dicky router sorted quickly with a replacement within 24 hours.

Roger.Wilco

ColinD1 said:

Nothing of use. ... suggested they sent an engineer out. The handler realised she was out of her depth and put me through to their tech 2 team. The same guy I spoke to 2 months ago I think. Putting it through Easy Switch Team.............

I'm sorry to hear that... I'm assuming that the handler is Vodafone? 

As I wrote here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77491925/#Comment_77491925 - the person with TalkTalk needs to raise a complaint and escalate as I suspect that Vodafone are now spinning wheels. 

 Call back on Tuesday as I was supposed to be away until then.

Problem with a dicky router sorted quickly with a replacement within 24 hours.

Routers these days are plug-n-play - though cheap so it is not uncommon to have some fail early in their life.  You may be aware of the "Bathtub curve": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

I'll keep checking back if you get any new information.

ColinD1

Bath tub curve takes me back over 40 years. My other thoughts were provocative maintenance, did the Openreach testing blow something?
No phone call as promised (person who said they would do it off sick).
I had reached the end of going around in circles. Finally put through to a manager in the directors team. They are trying to point elsewhere to problem. However, i believe there is a problem with porting going back to the original move. I have suggested they look at the problem afresh with someone who is not following a script. I pointed at two people who seemed to understand the problem. Manager stated that a split port was detectable by their system.
I have asked my son to query his mobile operator, but he is off on holiday soon.
I will phone them again in a week. Everything worked before I moved, it is not my responsibility to ensure it works afterwards. I am a customer not an engineer.
Not impressed with ADR and TalkTalk response as They just refuse to engage and repeatedly ignore communications. There appears to be no where to go to resolve this.

ColinD1

Thanks to Roger.Wilco for his help and education.
I found this reference which is a bit more user friendly  https://www.syntec.co.uk/blog/porting-reality-the-real-deal-behind-uk-telephone-number-portability/
that has made me realise that porting is really complicated.
Vodafone have given up and tried to say the problem is only with the three numbers they requested I give them. I am waiting for the recording to check I understood correctly and admire myself for not losing it completely. I have moved over to emails to ensure I have a record of their inconsistency. I think they have released me from my contract early, so if my son is unsuccessful in exposing a solution by enquiring why he cannot reach me from iD/Three I will move to BT as the owner of the number.
I suspect this is actually more common than realised as you would only become aware of it if it involved a close relative or a regular caller. I have had several odd cases where institutions have said they have called, but nothing has been logged on my missed calls.
Is this a problem known within the community, but not admitted to the customer?

frankfish

Not sure if this is helpful or not, assuming your telephone number was orginally allocated to BT, so when ever some one calls you the call initially gets routed into the BT network, within the BT network, they recognise your numbe has been ported to Vodafone, so inject a 6 digit porting prefix and route the call to Vodafone (the prefix prevents the call being routed back to BT).
If the person that is calling you is also on Vodafone, the call is not route to BT as they undertake a check that so see if the number is on the Vodafone network.As previously you were with TalkTalk,  TalkTalk would have also done the same check, however it could be when you ported to Vodafone, TalkTalk did not correctly update the config in thier network, so they still think you are connected to the TalkTalk network, so when any TalkTalk customers (or customers of suppliers hosted by TalkTalk) try to call you the call is not routed to BT (to get the prefix added , then routed to Vodafone), talk Talk are trying to connect the call the old port you used on there network

ColinD1

Mulling overnight  came to a similar solution which you have elegantly explained.

My son is with iD/Three, but I have been unable to discover a tie in with TalkTalk. Do they use the same network operator?

Interestingly my son claims to be able to have reach us when he was abroad on Greece which would have had a different route into the UK. We were away at the time so not fully proven as he aborted when he heard the answer phone.

He has taken up the baton requesting help from iD/Three. They are mystified but interested rather than clueless and evasive.

ColinD1

Three have suggested my son used a new sim card in his mobile phone. My assumption is that it doesn't include a frequently called list, so will do nothing other than appear to be doing something.
I don't think this is going to get anywhere.
Inappropriate to request my other testers pursue this. It would be interesting to ask the ADR team at TalkTalk to complain that they have a problem reaching me,..........

Roger.Wilco

@ColinD1 It is unfortunate that you are still having trouble - I give you full marks for battling on.

Offering a new SIM card is a standard practice for Mobile Operators as they cost peanuts and it (typically) looks from the customer's side that they are actually doing something.  Though, given how a Mobile network works - if turning off - then on the phone doesn't fix the problem then it is not the SIM card that is at fault.

I'm not surprised that your son might have succeeded in ringing you from overseas while roaming.  For a MVNO like iD/Three the call most probably would have be routed and dealt with differently while roaming and therefore, the entry point into the interlinking chain would most probably be different.  I tried to explain the interlinking chain back at the bottom of my post: (13 August at 11:51PM) https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77490639/#Comment_77490639  and @frankfish also explains this in his reply above.     Though, as I have said before - there are many ways that an Operator may accomplish this - using a porting prefix though typically used - is only but one possible method.  It is common enough though that Ofcom have a spreadsheet of such porting prefixes allocated and in use within the UK telephone network.  The spreadsheet can be found at the bottom (Number Portability Prefix Code (NPPC)) of this Ofcom page:  https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering/numbering-data

If iD/Three are willing to escalate the issue to TalkTalk - that would help.  Though, swapping a SIM card won't be much help.

ColinD1

I really should admit defeat
However TalkTalk have tried to be helpful on their Forum.
I looked at the OFCOM site and found out about "Call Trap". 
This was my explanation to TalkTalk.
Openreach provide your access to the greater trunk network. However, there are several Network Operators working together within that network. The major one is BT. The symptoms could be caused by your Network Operator not knowing I am now with Vodafone. To avoid charges from BT your  Network Operator routes between subscribers it "knows" are on the same network, as the transfer was problematic this information may have not got through.

My persistence has made me unpopular with Vodafone and they are threatening their staff with disciplinary action if they talk to me. They appear to any to take it arbitration which would not solve anything for a technical issue.

Only other thoughts are:

What if the wires got crossed in the transfer and TalkTalk were told I had moved to VOIP (which goes back to your more vigorous questioning earlier)

or

Is there something the Openreach engineer should have done to the TalkTalk equipment when he attached the Vodafone equipment to the Main Distribution Frame when he switched in February?

ColinD1

I am going to move to BT as Vodafone have marked my account saying anyone who tried to help me will be disciplined! (I have the subject access request so it is in black and white). I do not want to be associated with them any longer. There are some interesting Chinese whispers between the customer facing staff and the technical support teams. If you have a problem give up now, resistance is futile.
I refused to believe how bad customer service was but my experience with both TalkTalk and Vodafone has shown they are incredibly ineffective even if you get past the bots, swamp of social media, chats etc. and other methods of making you give up the will to live their systems do not allow them to fix things even if you do finally get them to understand. 
Vodafone blame Openreach not taking the responsibility that Vodafone are the supplier of services to customers and Openreach are their contractor and in this case probably the wrong place to look for the solution to the problem.
END of RANT