New to fibre? Then you might lose your phone number.

Andrea15

In my area fibre has just arrived. Now I want to switch provider and it turns out I might have to lose my phone number.
In my case no big deal, but it should.have been made clearer this was going to happen.
I have tried several broadband provider and none can guarantee I can port my number. I have phoned shell (my would be provider) and Vodafone (my would be old provider) and neither could explain what was going on.

littleboo

Are you talking about full fibre, ie FTTP? Shell do not offer a phone service with full fibre.

"Note, our Full Fibre packages don’t include a landline, you’ll lose your home phone service after your existing broadband package has been cancelled. After your existing service is cancelled, if you connect a landline, there’ll be no dial tone and you’ll be unable to make or receive calls, including calls to emergency services. If you choose a Full Fibre package and cancel your existing service, you’ll lose your existing previous home phone number which you will not be able to get back. You will be allocated a new one should you decide to switch back to a broadband service with a landline. Any careline, personal alarms or other services attached to your home phone service will not work with this Full Fibre Package."

tacpot12

We found this when moving between NowTV and Sky, which are part of the same group, so you would think it would be more likely that you could retain your number, but no.

In reality, we were in two minds as to whether we even needed a landline, but decided that, on balance, it was a useful thing to have. But so few people call us on the landline, it was easy to update the few people who do (including our GPs). 

 The new Voice over IP phone service is very good - the call quality is very clear and our old home phone plugs straight into the router as you would expect.  

Andrea15

littleboo said:

Are you talking about full fibre, ie FTTP? Shell do not offer a phone service with full fibre.

"Note, our Full Fibre packages don’t include a landline, you’ll lose your home phone service after your existing broadband package has been cancelled. After your existing service is cancelled, if you connect a landline, there’ll be no dial tone and you’ll be unable to make or receive calls, including calls to emergency services. If you choose a Full Fibre package and cancel your existing service, you’ll lose your existing previous home phone number which you will not be able to get back. You will be allocated a new one should you decide to switch back to a broadband service with a landline. Any careline, personal alarms or other services attached to your home phone service will not work with this Full Fibre Package."

No, the package is the "superfast fibre plus" and it does come with a phone line