Is it possible to move my Landline phone number to a mobile contract?

cassie75

My parents BT contract for phone and broadband is up soon but there are not many deals out there for 55mb+ broadband and unlimited phone calls. They are currently copper wire but i know they will have to move to VOIP.

Their intruder alarm uses the copper wire to inform us the alarm is going off so we are having to change that completely with a new alarm because the copper is being switched off. So that is already a big expense we could well do without.

So i got to thinking, could we just have the broadband we want (Giganet is winning at the moment) and a mobile contract (£6 with Smarty is winning for us) but keep their landline number which all their friends know and they have had for 50 years?
Hope this is a thing :-)

ladruid

cassie75 said:

Their intruder alarm uses the copper wire to inform us the alarm is going off so we are having to change that completely with a new alarm because the copper is being switched off. So that is already a big expense we could well do without.

You can convert many analogue and copper based alarm systems to Internet or 4G based using converter boxes. I hope your supplier looked into/offered those options, if they didn't look into it and just said you needed a totally new system, they might be overselling the new system.

Just saying...

cassie75

we were told over the phone there was a way and an engineer was coming out to check. However he did not turn up. so we rebooked and he took one look at the box and said "nothing i can do with that". He said just stay with it and hope we are the last to move away from copper or get a new one.
We got a quote from them and someone else, they were twice the price of the other one for EXACTLY the same system, in fact their yearly maintenance offered less than the other supplier - so we went with the other one after checking them out of course.
Anyway, the upshot is that the alarm is now not made so i guess that is why no converters were available.
We are ok with that now but would love to know what to do with the phone as none of the deals actually give us what we wanted - 55mb+ broadband and unlimited phone line.

JSmithy45AD

cassie75 said:

we were told over the phone there was a way and an engineer was coming out to check. However he did not turn up. so we rebooked and he took one look at the box and said "nothing i can do with that". He said just stay with it and hope we are the last to move away from copper or get a new one.
We got a quote from them and someone else, they were twice the price of the other one for EXACTLY the same system, in fact their yearly maintenance offered less than the other supplier - so we went with the other one after checking them out of course.
Anyway, the upshot is that the alarm is now not made so i guess that is why no converters were available.
We are ok with that now but would love to know what to do with the phone as none of the deals actually give us what we wanted - 55mb+ broadband and unlimited phone line.

Is it just your location that's stopping you finding a BB provider plus phone line and transferring the number?

littleboo

You can't port a landline number to a mobile network if that's the question. You can however port the number to a VOIP provider of your choice, A&A for example. You would either need to buy and configure an ATA and keep you existing phones or buy and configure VOIP phones. 

cassie75

ok. so that is a no go yet then, no doubt it will be available soon officially. there are already some hits on google for the question saying yes but i guess they may be fraud or something.
So i am back to a cheaper than bt option for unlimited calls and 55mb+ broadband.

Plus do we have to buy a new phone?

JSmithy45AD

cassie75 said:

ok. so that is a no go yet then, no doubt it will be available soon officially. there are already some hits on google for the question saying yes but i guess they may be fraud or something.
So i am back to a cheaper than bt option for unlimited calls and 55mb+ broadband.

Plus do we have to buy a new phone?

That's obviously going to depend on the phone they already have which you don't mention. We have had a BT Advanced phone with Trucall built in for 5 years and when we changed to FTTP at the end of last year it carried on working flawlessly.

You still haven't said what's available to you as (generally speaking) there are plenty of 55+Mbps BB deals with UL minutes (always as an add-on for landlines) out there. Have you spoken to BT themselves if you're coming out of minimum term?

J_B

Friend just moved to 'digital'

Unplugged phone from wall socket and plugged it into the back of the router - away to go!

cassie75

We had a look on ML for deals and didn't find much but will look again. Our contract ends August which is why i am looking now.

Our current bill with BT is £41.32 for internet & 700 mins per month which is plenty. But getting a bit frustrated with BT as the internet keeps dropping out, just for a few seconds, sometimes every 5 minutes for a while, then settles down. Every time it drops out my computer loses its connection and, due to a problem with the computer we have not been able to solve, will not connect again until i restart the computer. So this problem with BT is REALLY annoying.

I was making a very important call on my landline yesterday and i watched the internet drop out 4 times in that 30 minute call. If i had been using VOIP then i would have lost the call !!!

I really do not agree with this change over but i know there is nothing i can do.

I was looking at Giganet but they have just moved over to Cuckoo Fibre Limited who i have never heard of.

Bigphil1474

OP, we have our landline number that we've had for nearly 30 years, it's on VOIP via Virgin Media. As above, just plugged the same phone into a different place. We get unlimited calls with VM - can't say how much that costs per se as we have a bundle with all sorts, but we pay £70 a month for Sky Sports, Cinema, Netflix, 500mb BB, anytime calls, second box etc. , so would thought it would be a lot cheaper than what you are currently paying. Have you looked at fibre? Should be a more reliable service.

littleboo

cassie75 said:

We had a look on ML for deals and didn't find much but will look again. Our contract ends August which is why i am looking now.

Our current bill with BT is £41.32 for internet & 700 mins per month which is plenty. But getting a bit frustrated with BT as the internet keeps dropping out, just for a few seconds, sometimes every 5 minutes for a while, then settles down. Every time it drops out my computer loses its connection and, due to a problem with the computer we have not been able to solve, will not connect again until i restart the computer. So this problem with BT is REALLY annoying.

I was making a very important call on my landline yesterday and i watched the internet drop out 4 times in that 30 minute call. If i had been using VOIP then i would have lost the call !!!

I really do not agree with this change over but i know there is nothing i can do.

I was looking at Giganet but they have just moved over to Cuckoo Fibre Limited who i have never heard of.

To clarify, do you mean your broadband drops, or your wifi drops? If its the broadband, has it been reported?