Problems with Sky BB

cb1979

As my Vodafone BB contract recently ended as did not fancy paying their £36 a month subscription i had a look on uswitch and Sky looked a good deal for fiber at £23 a month with a £75 voucher

so i signed up and was given an instalation date of the 3rd Septermber

Th guy turned up to instal it on behalf of openreach and after running the new Fibre cable in to the house turned his attention to doing the outside connection but was unable to fine the channel to feed a new Fibre cable across the road to connect me

so he could not complete the instalation and as it was 6pm he sent a message to Openreach to explain the problem

He said someone would contact me in the next few days, so i was most suprised to open the door at 9.15 the next morning and see an openreach engineer, he quickly managed to connect me and got my internet up and running

the only thing he could not test was my landline phone as Sky had not included the necessary adaptor to plug in to the new Hub

A couple of days later i got the correct adaptor so when i tried ringing my landline to test it nothing happened

So i contacted Sky and after being transferred to the correct team they informed me they had given me a new number

(when i signed up to Sky i filled in the box to transfer my existing landline number)

After a difficult conversation understanding the Sky agent they said the only way they could possibly get my number back is to cancel my contract and re instate it

I explained i had had the number for over 30 years and is used for friends and family worldwide, and for 2 factor authentication for banks etc

they said this would be done the next morning, the next day arrived and still no landline, they then sent a message they were cancelling my service on the 22nd of September with no mention of reinstating it with my correct landline number

Not sure what to do now?

dnpark38

I had to accept the new number prepare for that to happen.

luci

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6683154/problems-with-sky-bb

Someone else had a similar problem with losing their landline number recently. Perhaps see if you can find that thread on here.

I hope you manage to get your number back. I think it is held for a time before it is completely lost. Hopefully, someone will be able to clarify that.

Neil_Jones

Easiest solution at this point might be to cancel the cancellation (if you want to stay with Sky) and port the landline number to somewhere like A&A and then send all calls to your mobile. That will preserve your number. You may need to advise Sky about this as I suspect they'll charge for a phone line that you won't have.

https://www.aa.net.uk/voice-and-mobile/number-porting/port-numbers/ - "If you have recently ceased a number with another service provider then it is usually still possible to port the number, as long as it is within one month of being ceased."

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82135288#Comment_82135288

30 days I beleive.

luci

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82135313#Comment_82135313

Thanks. I thought it was, but wasn't 100% sure.

cb1979

After my problems with Sky losing my landline number and contacting them yet again they cancelled my contract with a date of the 22nd September

So i started looking for a new BB supplier and contacted BT, spoke to someone in the UK and explained my problem

They then offered me a deal which was only £1 more than the Sky product, and said they could recover my landline number

they waived the £30 connection fee, supplied me with a digital Handset and a battery backup which will power the BB hub and phone in the event of a power cut,and gave me an activation date of the 24th September

Also as i am now BT customer again my BT premium email account is now merged so i do not have to pay the monthly fee for that which is a saving

Got up at 5.40 this morning to find the Sky BB had been disconnected so i connected the BT Hub and the new BB was working a couple of minutes later, plugged the landline phone in to the hub and our number is re instated

As i am now a BT customer again just joined BT mobile which uses the EE network, was with 02 which has a very poor network in our area, and the BT rate is slightly cheaper

Found it difficult communicating with Sky on the phone with their overseas call center with staff who have strong accents and poor command of English

iniltous

As you had the phone number for 30 years , that predates almost every other network provider (apart from some cable number ranges ) so when Sky or VF (or both) messed up the number reverts back to the number range holder (BT in this case ) and the BT representative took the time and effort to search out that number and allocated to you , so along with the pretty competitive price and the DV handset and BBU that’s quite a result , well done.

cb1979

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82147286#Comment_82147286

I origionally had the phone number issued by a Cable TV company in the south east called Eurobell in October 1996

They were bought out in 2000 by Blueyonder/Telewest who were eventually bought by NTL who eventually became Virgin media

I was with all these companys then eventually I started swapping to other company's on a regular basis ie BT Now tv Vodafone, have been with BT a couple of times in the past, usually because i was getting cashback deals to switch providers through varios cashback websites

Every time I switched we kept our landline phone number

iniltous

If BT retrieved for you, a number that wasn’t even theirs originally, and had dropped out of the porting between other providers as part of their managed migration, ( and it was originally and presumably is now really a Virgin Media number , the consolidation of the cable industry years ago effectively saw VM as the number range holder for all ex cable companies ) then you were incredibly fortunate, there is a 30 day window where ceased numbers have to be held available to port to others , so VM couldn’t cease this number immediately they got it back from Vodafone ( after Sky failed to request the number when you joined Sky ) presumably BT used this 30 day window of opportunity to grab it back for you ….many providers would just say it’s not possible when it clearly possible is if they do a little work on your behalf, as stated that’s a great result for you especially as the broadband price is pretty decent as well .