Phone number

[ArmyLadNW]

I have joined Now after being with Sky and have been informed that my existing landline number needs to change.

This is inconvenient and speaking to BT they advised me that I should be able to keep my existing number?

[Jayach]

How was your phone provided when you were with Sky? Was it connected to their router or did it connect to the BT/Openreach phone socket?

Are Now saying you will have to have a new number?

[RoyB]

@ArmyLadNW 

If I recall correctly, there is some sort of special problem that means porting between Now and Sky is not possible. No idea why not.

So maybe BT (now EE) could have accepted the port.

But they aren’t the arbiter here, Ofcom are. Maybe give them a ring to discuss it?

[RoyB]

@ArmyLadNW 

Another option might be to bite the bullet and go VoIP now, letting the VoIP supplier port in your number from Sky.

Then just go Pay As You Go with Now, don’t even connect a phone, ignore whatever number they put the landline part of your service on.

Maybe just keep an analogue phone handy so you can ring 150 if you ever need to contact Now Broadband?

[chilli2]

You  have the right to port your number, this is a requirement by OFFCOM

there are no iffs or buts about this this is a thing that the provider must do, using excuses such as our systems are not set up for this are not acceptable they must do it .

Having said all of that, if you use your "landline" number and what to keep it i would look at moving it over to a voip provider and splitting your internet connection from your landline phone number connection .

 If Now hadnt offered me a deal ( or if they go back on the deal im on) then i was looking at moving to another provider and porting my number to either Voiphone for £5/month with 100 minutes or to Andrews and arnold for £1.44/month ( no inclusive minutes) and running it through a Voip adaptor, known as an Analogue Telephone Adaptor (ATA)  as opposed to an ISP supplied router - such as the Grandstream HT801 where one end has a phone socket and the other has an ethernet socket that plugs into your router

[RoyB]

@chilli2 

I have a suspicion that Now and Sky aren’t separate ‘providers’ as described by Ofcom for number porting purposes; they are effectively the same ‘provider’, and this is the difficulty here.