re: SOGEA connection, change ISP and retain landline number

SlapHeadDiver

Hi,

re: SOGEA connection, change ISP and retain landline number

I'm with Sky, now out of contract and have been looking to change ISP. I require broadband and landline and I need to retain our landline number which we have had since 1978 for business reasons.

I've been looking into this for ages without success, the issue is not being able to retain our landline number.

Vodafone - I've spoken to them and whilst their website says no, their support team say no then yes then no but cannot say why, just claim Sky is blocking it. Their FAQ's talk about SOGEA

Sky - Spoke to them and they say they are not blocking it but can't explain why Vodafone would have a problem.

When I switched to Sky in Dec 22 our phone was moved from the wall socket to the router. Whilst I understood this was now digital that was all I appreciated. Further recent research and I believe we were moved onto SOGEA and I now believe this maybe the issue regarding the landline.

I find it hard to believe it is impossible and if so Sky should have made that clear at the outset. Is there a way to change ISP and retain our landline number?

Regards
Mark

Vitor

There's some logic in porting the number out to an independent VoIP provider like Andrews & Arnold first, especially for a critical business line. The small additional cost could likely be treated as a business expense.

Once it is sitting with a VoIP company, you can change broadband freely and the number is safe.

iniltous

If your Sky telephony is via the Sky router , then you are already SoGEA, all SoGEA means is that there is no WLR telephony component, so you don’t use the socket in the wall , if the provider wants to supply telephony it’s IP telephony nit PSTN .

Sky supposedly port numbers on request, Vodafone supposedly import numbers on request, so there shouldn’t really be an issue , however only BT are required to offer telephony by Ofcom , so VF (even if it seems against their own policy) don’t have to offer telephony , so using them is in effect a gamble, there is a pretty decent chance it will be OK , but no comeback if it isn’t ….most providers have a ‘best efforts’ clause , in that they will try but don’t guarantee the import of any number.

FWIW , Sky will blame VF and VF will blame Sky should it be unsuccessful, and you will never know who was at fault.

If this number has existed since 1978 , it must be originally a BT number , that clearly you have succeeded in porting to Sky and possibly other providers in the past , you could always take VF on a broadband only basis and use a third party VoIP provider for telephony, but that needs coordination as you may lose service ( telephone or broadband or both ) if the orders are not synchronised, you also need extra kit as the telephone port on a Vodafone router is only used when it’s VF suppling the telephone service , if a third party then you need an ATA or a phone with a built in ATA

SOGEAnamey

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6654866/re-sogea-connection-change-isp-and-retain-landline-number

Essentially the "big" ISPs are not really interested in providing SIP telephone number.
Even if it 'works now' Vitor is right this can be tricky and 'passing the buck blame game' can easily accur.

I do believe the process here is much of the problem. It would be better if OpenReach made it so that port-out won't cancel broadband without warning, e.g. this should be come a renumber-and-port-out by default, so that the remaining ISP can SOGEA the line, formally cancelling the Analogue service. They could even choose to cover the line rental for a grace-period, notifying the ISP that it will be cancelled but can be retained by now formally moving the line to SOGEA.

Often the safer approach is to first get the ISP to SOGEA the line asking them to cancel the number entirely; allowing the number to go into holding-state and redeem it immediately with VOIP provider afterwards.
This is needlessly difficult and even this holding number approach has only been worked out after the fact (I suspect with OFCOM input); in my view this should have been sorted-out long before the stop-sell in 2023.
People with separate Analogue-phone and ISP account are particularly left stuck in the middle.

I wholeheartedly endorse the recommendation to get any important geographic phone number moved to AAISP VOIP or another like ICUK, Phonely, etc — independent of consumer ISPs. There is no easy answer.

The article from AAISP does not surprise me; https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/october-25-news/
Notice "We apologetically announce that we will be raising the price of our SIP number services.".
"Support of lesser-technical users who have been forced to migrate, and then need help setting everything up makes it difficult to make the service – originally conceived and priced expecting only highly technical users - profitable"

Neil49

My existing contract with BT for fttp broadband and a telephone add on is reaching the end of its 24 month term and I am considering my options to move given the ever increasing price. Ideally I would switch my phone number service to A&A but when would I do this. Do I need to be out of a fixed contract with BT before implementing the process?

There are a number of fttp broadband providers who service my location but very few include a telephone option. I switch to A&A or similar seems appropriate. I'm already on voip with BT and have DECT handsets that work alongside the BT supplied phone.

Any advice on how best to approach this would be appreciated. Many thanks.

danco

I haven't any experience with BT, but when I ported the number I found that different ISPs treat matters differently. With the one I had, the phone number was treated as an add-on to the broadband contract, and I was able to move it without any trouble (actually, there was bit of confusion as to whether it was an add-on or an essential part of the contract, but that got cleared up). But I did some checking with other providers, and some of them regarded porting the line as cancelling the existing contract.

So I would suggest that you need to find out what your contract says.

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81989442#Comment_81989442

If you move to A&A for your telephone service , then unless they are also your your broadband provider, then the router telephone port won’t be activated from BT or any new ISP , so you will need to buy an ATA if you want to use your existing DECT phones or buy anew phone with a built in ATA and not use your DECT phones .

If your intention is to leave BT completely, and use a different ISP (but not A&A ) that uses Openreach , probably the simplest way would be to migrate to the new ISP (not taking telephony with them , ) and once that’s done , use the 30 day window to ‘reclaim’ your number , you contact A&A and they retrieve the number , you will have a period without the phone number and are reliant on A&A successfully getting the number back …there isn’t really an option otherwise, if you join another ISP that does offer telephony , obviously they get the phone number from BT , and you asking for A&A to then get the number may inadvertently cease the new broadband service (it may not you would need to check but you may have early termination charges ) obviously if you chose to use A&A as the ISP as well as VoIP supplier you may not have a break in telephony service and they may supply a router with an active phone port , but then you are in the same position as with BT , not having separate suppliers.

Your BT DV phone won’t work with other suppliers routers .

danco

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81989826#Comment_81989826

Or, instead of using the supplied router and buying an ATA, buy a third party router with an ATA phone port. For me that gave more control at about the same price as buying an ATA.