Upgrade to Full Fibre, is handling number transfer process now stable?

[#1]

I plan to upgrade to the now available FTTP from FTTC in the new year.  Family want to retain the phone number for a few years as a convenience so I'm planning to use A&A VOIP.

It sounds like that it is now safe to upgrade and then port the number to A&A once on Full Fibre without risking it going astray. Is that a fair assessment?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@Deembe 

It appears to be reasonaly stable - no real horror stories on here for a while.

You are right to wait until FF is installed. Porting the number before then would lead to your account closure and possible cancellation of the full fibre install.

You have 30 days in which to port. However it should be done asap after the fibre install just in case anything happens. A&A appear to know what they are doing with PN numbers. One thing to watch out for is the port will initially fail. Your number is "ceased" and the A&A systems can't handle that. You need to get A&A support to speak to the number range holder (BT in this case) and get a manual port done.

I believe you can set your A&A account up in advance so everything would be ready for the port.

Brian

[#3]

Thanks Brian, that's good to hear and confirms my understaning of the sequence. I guess I could set-up a Voip account with A&A in advance but not sure what the gain is.

David

[#4]

@Deembe 

If you set the account up in advance I believe you are given a temporary number. Thie would allow you to get an idea of how A&A VOIP works and if your phones are compatible. It's also one less thing to do after the FTTP install.

There is some downtime with the number port. If you're ready to move asap after FF is installed then this might save a day or two.

I assume you're aware VOIP doesn't work in power cuts unless you have power backups (ONT, router and phone (if powered)). Also if you wish to use house extensions then you need to get the installer to leave the master socket in place but disconenct the incoming OR copper cable.

Brian

[#5]

@Deembe 

It also depends on whether you buy a fully configured digital phone from A&A or whether you are going to configure your own ATA and use your current analogue phone.

Being new to VoIP it took me quite a while, plus help from this forum, to set up a Grandstream ATA.

[#6]

Yes I plan going with the Grandstream HT812 ATA and reusing the DECT phones. Suspect that the 'landline' will be a transient thing, largely displaced by mobiles and when we downsize that will be the end of that era.

Some very useful discussions on the forum.  Glad that I wired the house in CAT6!

[#7]

The pre-configured stuff from A&A (seamlessly, on my experience) works. (at a cost).

Things to be aware of (that I've found out).

The Yealink documentation supplied doesn't list all the features of the handsets. Online documentation also appeared to be somewhat scant.

If you have more than one handset the phonebooks between the handsets don't synchronise (but they do record missed, dialed and incoming calls in synchronicity).

The battery life on the handsets is quite long (a lot longer than other DECT handsets I've used in the past). The handsets come with belt clips. My learnings are - if you've been used to having more than one handset in your house you may like to consider having one handset (it is cheaper and it can work that way IMO - just cost me a bit to find that out)

[#8]

I did exactly what you did – change from FTTC to FTTP and telephone to VOIP.

In my case the VOIP supplier was Virtual Landline. I have tried A&A and they are very good if a little expensive.

The porting was applied for as the OR engineer drove away and worked fine taking 13 days to complete, which I think was down to Plusnet/BT?  Virtual Landline confirmed application within a very short time.

Virtual Landline don’t charge for porting and they have an all calls inclusive package for £8.75 pcm on a monthly contract. Interestingly they don’t appear to have the 1 hour limit and then start charging as with Plusnet, BT and others which given the propensity of the females in this house for talking on the phone is great !

As for hardware we’re still using our 3 handset cordless phones via a Cisco ATA which works well.

As everybody points out there’s no VOIP during a power cut but most people seem to have cordless phones which also don’t work during a power cut - even on PSTN !

[#9]

That's decided, ordered the upgrade, booked the OR engineer and ordiring the Grandstream ATA.

Will be setting up VOIP via A&A who my son already uses and is happy with.

Thanks everyone.

[#10]

@bmc 

Hi Brian

I am currently trying to go through this process of porting my number to a voip provider. I was told by plusnet that I had to wait for the number to come out of quarantine (which takes between 5-10days) before I could try and get the number ported to voip, is that correct? Intially it was rejected due to the cease order as you mentioned.

Thanks

[#11]

Well part one, the upgrade to Full Fibre went very smoothly.  The OR contractor took about 1 hour to pull the fibre / remove the copper from the duct, install the ONT in our preferred position and run the Fibre back to the CSP above the duct.  Neat job.

Plugged in the Hub 2 and connected via structured CAT6 cabling already in place to the ONT and a few minutes later we were online.

So started part 2 by ordered the port of the landline number to Andrews & Arnold last night. The Grandstream ATA is in position, configured and  just waiting for the port to complete.

Thanks again for the tips!

[#12]

Andrews & Arnold confirmed that the number port is accepted and it will be complete by next Monday. So one week from Fibre live to landline number restored via VOIP which seems OK

[#13]

At least it appears to work, a little faster would be even nicer 😀!

Thanks for the updates, I am going through this stress with my mother-in-law at the moment, and I'd really prefer no downtime. So my option is to order a complete new service, which I'll attempt again today.

Good luck with your transfer.

[#14]

Yes, catering for my MIL's aversion to change was the reason that my wife asked me to port our existing number. We only regularly use the landline for calls to her and to my son. He though is an existing A&A subscriber so I understand  that calls to him may be free!

Hope that your changes go as smoothly as mine appear to be doing, fingers crossed for Voip on Monday to wrap it up.

[#15]

He though is an existing A&A subscriber so I understand  that calls to him may be free!

They should be. I have an A & A voip account for the office pbx. I recently helped a family member port his landline to A & A and did all the testing to/from his phone using the office numbers , all calls were shown as free.