Ditching Landline for VOIP, and then going back to Landline?

theonenonly

So I'm thinking of going to Community Fibre after having a FTTC by Sky for years now. They've been good, but Community Fibre offer more for less.
I still need a landline service, and CF offer a VOIP service where I can keep my old landline number.

However, say a few years down the line I wish to go back to full Landline, would I be able to keep my number? I can only find information online of switching from Landline > Voip, but nothing for VOIP > Landline.

DCFC79

I dont see why not, why not ask Community Fibre.

iniltous

Theoretically it’s possible, but I vaguely recall ( on another forum ) a poster that had  ported their landline number to VOIP provider and after a while, wanted to return the number to a regular ‘landline’ provider and was having no success in getting it arranged.

littleboo

Why would you port it back to a PSTN provider? Just stay with voip regardless of how you get your Internet. The PSTN is due to be switched off sometime around 2025 anyway. 

Chino

As @littleboo points out, in a few years time there may not be a PSTN service to port back to. A more pertinent question for you might be is how easy is it to port a number between VOIP providers? A lot of PSTN operators seem to make a complete hash of this process and I doubt VOIP providers will be any better.

matelodave

OpenReach are slowly moving their PSTN network to VoIP so, as Chino points out, there probably wont be a PSTN to port back to. All you can do is hope that VoIP providers can port numbers between them if the neccessity arises. Potentially if you have a VoIP service then it shouldn't matter who your ISP is if you have you number with a VoIP provider who is independent of the ISP - eg something like SIPgate

littleboo

Instead of porting to CF, port straight to someone like Sipgate.