topic Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT in Digital Home Phone

trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:22:21 GMT

This is urgent: I lost my landline number on 11th of December 2024 when my EE account was transferred by EE, without my consent, to BT, with whom I previously had my account. The account was immediately transferred back and there was no problem with the broadband, but I have not had a working phone since then.

I have made endless calls to EE/BT and as a last resort they are sending me a new BT phone. They wanted to give me a temporary number and then reinstate my old number but they haven't be able to do this and they don't understand why. They say the phone should be working but it isn't.

I had transferred from copper to full fibre a while back, months before 11th December, and the phone worked fine, so moving from copper to fibre isn't the problem.

What worries me is that looking online this morning I have seen posts saying that after 30 days a number cannot be retrieved, so perhaps I have about 24 hours to get this sorted.

We have had this number for 60 years so losing it would be a disaster. My whole experience with EE has been a disaster. I moved from BT to EE: they keep insisting they are the same company but why then are problems such as this arriving?

I have tried so hard to get this sorted and his post is a last shot. I do hope someone can help me.

Many thanks

red green

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:40:09 GMT

Was this landline number with EE before all this happened? Was in on DV?

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:42:37 GMT

Yes, it was an EE account and I moved from copper to fibre (DV) in 2023.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:44:08 GMT

Just to check, I'm asking about the landline, not the BB.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:48:37 GMT

My understanding is that once you went from copper to Fibre everything is digital, is that correct? I have BB and a landline, and there hasn't been a problem with the broadband through all of this. Problem is only with the phone, which was working perfectly until 11th December.

Thank you

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

JimM11 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:18:08 GMT

@red-green Your post is very conflicting in what you are saying, they moved, you moved, so hard to work out, but your number may be safe, dial it and if someone picks up then it is gone to you!

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:59:52 GMT

It is EE/BT who are causing confusion here, not me! I am trying to keep things as clear as I can.

Once again: my entire EE account, landline and broadband were ported to BT on 11th December and almost immediately ported back.

The broadband still worked after this but landline didn't, and hasn't worked since then.

I'm looking for a solution to get the old number back before it is too late.

Number has not be reallocated.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

Peter_W — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 14:48:14 GMT

Good afternoon @red-green, welcome to the EE Community.

I totally get your concern with this one, especially if you've had this number for such a long period.

At what point was it that the number you want to keep was lost?

Do you know if this was at the switch from EE to BT, or did it reach BT then not come back across after that?

What was the last update you had from our team about this too, and was any reason given for why your service switched over and back in the first place?
Peter

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 15:35:52 GMT

Thank you, Peter.

My experience with EE was so bad that eventually an agent and his manager suggested on 3rd December that I move back to BT, with whom I had had previously had an account. I thought this was an odd idea and could cause problems. (How right I was!)

We arranged that I would think about this and the agent would call me again on 11th December. Between 3rd and 11th I looked into moving to a new provider but it was so close to Christmas I decided I wanted to park it until January 2025. (Problems I was having were mostly admin, billing, etc, phone and broadband did work at that time.)

I waited on 11th to tell EE I wanted to hold fire for the time being and for them not to move me but no call came, when I tried to call someone later that day the phone wasn’t working.

In the course of subsequent calls to customer service I was told what I outlined above: the account was ported to BT on 11th and then ported back but moving the landline back was unsuccessful. I think it all happened very quickly indeed, as I never noticed a break in service with the broadband.

I was last in touch with EE about this yesterday and I had an engineer out earlier in the week. No one seems to be able to find out what the problem is and how to solve it.

I will be very upset if that number is gone. Thank you for your help.

Sent from Outlook for iOS<>

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 15:40:48 GMT

I'm not sure. Full Fibre BB is a separate thing to DV. I know there are users with DV but running with FTTC BB. I'm not sure you can have the opposite of an analogue landline (from a traditional phone socket) with Full Fibre (from an ONT) & even it is physically possible whether EE would supply it.. @JimM11 : Would you know?

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 15:54:06 GMT

I have digital voice: my phone is connected to the back of the hub.

Thanks

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

JimM11 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:30:03 GMT

@XRaySpeX Once OR install the fiber cable, then all bets are off for copper cable, had that laugh with the OR engineers when fiber was installed, they offered to pull out the old cable which i had no problem with, but the shaky part was, if we did it all correct (OR) then it should be ok, once the fttc is cut-off then that is it and you do know that when OR test the ONT and do FW upgrade to it within a couple of minutes, no going back and under no circumstance will OR even entertain it. DV then has to go through the router or another interface for landline phone, NO choice. ((DV the BT/EE)) is just voip but there secret (well kept) control for the land line service....

Note: Also when DV is supplied over the copper from the fttc, OR remove the Battery Backup that was there before DV change so no more 48V D.C. supply on the line, and becomes very important to have a BBU to keep the ONT and Router up if you have to rely on voice through the router, and assuming that the exchange is keeping the systems up with there Back-Up UPS system which it should be doing.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

Peter_W — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:32:06 GMT

Thanks for explaining there @red-green.

I'm glad to hear that our team have been on the case with this, even if you haven't been able to get the resolution you were looking for just yet.

Did someone mention if they would follow up with you about it when speaking to us yesterday, and do you know if you have an open complaint?

I'm just trying to establish where we're at with this so we can be sure we're pointing you in the best direction for getting this resolved.

Peter

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:43:20 GMT

@JimM11 wrote:

Once OR install the fiber cable, then all bets are off for copper cable

You don't know what you are talking about! The whole thing is complete rubbish!
I've got both working copper landline & working full fibre coming to my house & intend to have both until 2027.

Upshot is you don't know the answer to the Q I posed.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

JimM11 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:47:30 GMT

@XRaySpeX And do you have 2 separate lines to the property, kept one away from the other?

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 17:34:35 GMT

About a foot apart from the same pole.

However I got a bit contradictory in my original Q.

I know from my own experience & from inference from the rules and processes that it is possible to have an analogue landline (from a traditional phone socket) with Full Fibre (from an ONT) at the same time. The real Q is whether you can get them both from the same provider & in particular from EE. The answer is probably not as once the ISP has laid full fibre they will want to take the opportunity to switch your landline to DV & take you off the eventually disappearing PSTN. Whereas with separate providers the BB provider would have no jurisdiction over the landline.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

red-green — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 17:35:34 GMT

Thanks, Peter. There is a complaint open, for what that’s worth.

Once the new phone arrives I have to install it myself and pair it with the hub and will probably then have to ring EE to tell them where I’m at. There are a couple of agents involved in trying to sort this but obviously I can’t get in touch with them, because it’s impossible to contact a particular person. Both the agents and I felt yesterday this was pretty much the end of the road, we seem to have tried everything. EE say the phone should be working and don’t understand why it isn’t.

I came onto the community board this morning because I saw online that there was a 30 day window to retrieve an old number and I think I have about a day left. Very, very frustrated about this. The agents are all polite and patient but the EE/BT arrangement is a disaster and it’s just not working.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

JimM11 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 18:00:10 GMT

@XRaySpeX You have been dealing with EE for some extended period of time and will have knowledge of the telephone delivery system if that is who is supplying the service, if you have or ever had 2 lines supplied by EE do they consider it a single or a separate service for each. Understand where you are coming from, and the question was about analogue lines, at the end of the day, any traditional phone, dect with an answering or base station is an analogue device, that is why there is an ata port on the back of the router, and many different way's to get it connected if so desired. Hope that your line does stay live until 2027 and then you only have to deal with that when it is raised.

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

Peter_W — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 18:00:11 GMT

I'm confident we will get the issues with the phone service resolved here @red-green.

I can appreciate the concerns around your number are more pressing here though, and I want to be sure that we've done all we can to help with this side of things.

I'm going to send you over a private message to look over what other options we can look at here.

Peter

Re: trying to recover lost landline number:URGENT

XRaySpeX — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 18:49:44 GMT

@JimM11 : They are not! EE has never supplied me with landline. It used to be that EE would give you BB-Only hosted on a landline no. provided by someone else.

I think you are misunderstanding my posts. Landline & BB are from diff providers.