Moved house, don't know phone supplier - help please

cubegame

Good afternoon.

Hope someone can help me out here. We recently moved house and I phoned BT this morning to transfer the phone number. They informed me that the previous occupant had transferred the line away from BT and we would therefore have to pay £125 to have it reconnected.

As I don't want to pay the fee I would be quite happy to go with the different supplier but how can I found out who it is?

I phone Talk Talk to see if it was them and they stated that I would have to have the line reconnected with BT anyway! Is that true?

Thanks in advance for any help.

normanmark

Plug in the phone, if theres a dial tone then call 150 that will tell you the supplier

deklan99

cubegame wrote: »

I phone Talk Talk to see if it was them and they stated that I would have to have the line reconnected with BT anyway! Is that true?

Talktalk being economical with the truth, it's BT Openreach who deal with connections not BT Retail. Whoever you get to arrange connection via Openreach has to pay for it so there's no way of avoiding the fee (if applicable).
Many providers will arrange connection, most for less than £125 so shop around.Be aware that you will probably end up with a minimum term for line rental so changing to another provider within that period will cost you.

cubegame

deklan99 wrote: »

Talktalk being economical with the truth, it's BT Openreach who deal with connections not BT Retail. Whoever you get to arrange connection via Openreach has to pay for it so there's no way of avoiding the fee (if applicable).
Many providers will arrange connection, most for less than £125 so shop around.Be aware that you will probably end up with a minimum term for line rental so changing to another provider within that period will cost you.

Is it really the case that they actually disconnect when someone terminates the account though?

If I phone 150 and someone answers (whoever it may be) it'll be a bit of a joke if I have to pay for a connection which is actually working anyway!

deklan99

I would imagine BT would lose interest in the line as soon as it was transferred away.
If it was a Talktalk line they won't deal with Openreach for re-connections so you would be stuck with getting another provider to activate it for you.
As for disconnections then some lines can stay dormant for weeks, others in a busy exchange could be reallocated pretty quickly. No way to tell which way it will go.

Heinz

deklan99 wrote: »

As for disconnections then some lines can stay dormant for weeks, others in a busy exchange could be reallocated pretty quickly. No way to tell which way it will go.

We ceased my mother-in-law's phone line when she died nearly 9 months ago now - but there's still a dial tone and dialling 17070 still results in the circuit being identified with her old number.

But that's in a quiet little Suffolk seaside resort where there's a minimal amount of new building going on.

deklan99

Ours was re-allocated the same day. Only found out when I phoned home to see if our line was back with BT and got some unknown punter with our, as it transpired, old number.