Line fault

sourbutts

My elederly mothers telephone has stopped working.  This means her broadband has also stopped working.  She does not know who her telephone provider is, and is unable to log on to search for her bills, etc etc.
How does one report a fault in the UK without the telphone provider info?

flaneurs_lobster

Would your mother be willing to divulge her email userid/password to you so that you can search her emails for her (assuming she knows who her email provider is)?

Could she borrow a mobile phone (I guess she doesn't own one) to access her emails?

Try putting the phone number into the following 

https://portal.aql.com/telecoms/network_lookup.php

flossymcfly

Does she have a paper bank statement she could look at?

littleboo

sourbutts said:

My elederly mothers telephone has stopped working.  This means her broadband has also stopped working.  She does not know who her telephone provider is, and is unable to log on to search for her bills, etc etc.
How does one report a fault in the UK without the telphone provider info?

I don't think you can. As above, you need to look for billing info.

Neil_Jones

flaneurs_lobster said:

Would your mother be willing to divulge her email userid/password to you so that you can search her emails for her (assuming she knows who her email provider is)?

Could she borrow a mobile phone (I guess she doesn't own one) to access her emails?

Try putting the phone number into the following 

https://portal.aql.com/telecoms/network_lookup.php

This doesn't seem to be reliable, as I've bashed in a number I know is Virgin powered and it still says its BT.

In fact I bashed a couple of numbers in and they're all BT apparent (one is technically BT powered as its a Plusnet number).

sourbutts said:

My elederly mothers telephone has stopped working.  This means her broadband has also stopped working.  She does not know who her telephone provider is, and is unable to log on to search for her bills, etc etc.
How does one report a fault in the UK without the telphone provider info?

Don't you know who your parents phone is with for situations like this?

Easy solution here is bank statements (paper), or provide access to internet somewhere else like a phone hotspot, a friend/neighbour, the library...

flaneurs_lobster

Neil_Jones said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Would your mother be willing to divulge her email userid/password to you so that you can search her emails for her (assuming she knows who her email provider is)?

Could she borrow a mobile phone (I guess she doesn't own one) to access her emails?

Try putting the phone number into the following 

https://portal.aql.com/telecoms/network_lookup.php

This doesn't seem to be reliable, as I've bashed in a number I know is Virgin powered and it still says its BT.

My suggestion was the first returned from a Google search "look up provider from phone number". Was extensively tested by sticking in my landline no. and it returned "BT". It is, therefore, 100% accurate.
.

dc_scotland

Would the router not provide any clues ?

iniltous

The phone number itself is of no use in determining who is supplying service on that number , even if the number isn’t  ported , and is still part of that particular range holders numbers , with something like BT wholesale it could  still be one of of many providers actually providing the service , it’s not just BT Consumer on BTw numbers , and obviously there are dozens of possible recipients if the number was originally BT ( for example ) and ported to the likes of Sky , Talk Talk , Vodafone etc ….searching the number only brings up the original holder of that number , not who has it now.

The fairly obvious thing to do would be to check previous payments , who is the direct debit collected by , or if paid by a different method , who is the cheque, standing order or whatever made payable to , if this information isn’t available then unfortunately reporting a fault is going to be tricky , short of calling random providers, explaining the situation and giving them the phone  number and asking ‘is this one of yours’ , but even if you stumble across the correct provider ( assuming they will even do this rudimentary check ) without being able to provide much more information they wouldn’t indulge you anyway , from a security point of view they won’t deal with you , if you can’t provide the appropriate information which you don’t seem to have 

Just a quick thought , chances are the broadband router will be branded with the supplier name/ logo etc , and it’s probably the case that whoever’s name is on the router is the supplier, and is the obvious place to start 

dave_dph

Call the operator on 100 from another BT line saying you can't connect to the number. They'll try to test the line and if it isn't theirs they'll connect to the current provider in order to assist further.

I know this used to happen back in the old NTL / Telewest days, so guessing it still does.

iniltous

dave_dph said:

Call the operator on 100 from another BT line saying you can't connect to the number. They'll try to test the line and if it isn't theirs they'll connect to the current provider in order to assist further.

I know this used to happen back in the old NTL / Telewest days, so guessing it still does.

I think you are assuming what used to happen decades ago still happens , but it doesn’t  calling the BT operator from a BT line won’t help , BT are not the industry police , if you say I can’t get through to a particular number ( and don’t know if it’s a BT number or not ) there is nothing BT can do , plus , they won’t report a line faulty on a third party ‘report’ even if the OP mother is a BT customer , as should the ‘line’ ( and that’s assuming it’s a BT line ) be faulty be something the customer has done ( cut through the line while gardening for example ) if Openreach turn , fix it and send the bill for that damage to the customer that damaged it , that customer could turn around and say , I never reported it , I was going to move to another network and leave the ‘BT’ line cut off , so I’m not paying , to report a fault the customer or customer agent ( with their permission ) has to make the report incase it’s a chargeable repair.

Also , in this case , say the OP’s mothers line was supplied by Talk Talk , the BT operator can’t test that line and can’t report it faulty, and won’t know it’s a Talk Talk line , at best ( and even this is unlikely ) they may say it’s a BT line or it’s not a BT line , that’s if they have access to a BT accounts that can be searched by telephone number , but even that is against ‘data protection’ rules, as stated , the same info ( the providers name ) is likely on the ‘badge’ on the router, but knowing this won’t actually help much