Family with sky and now can't ring my number

[#1]

I was told by someone who rings our landline regularly that they are getting a message stating the "number does not exist". After some digging it seems that anyone who rings us from a sky landline or sky mobile or from a Now landline is getting that message. Everyone else can ring no problem! And we can ring everyone, including those on sky. I've been onto support but they're bouncing it back saying it's sky problem and they can't talk to sky because of data protection. They've also been very unreliable at ringing me back when they've arranged to do so, for which i have now had an apology. However, I've seen older posts on here where this problem had occurred (something to do with split porting or incomplete porting, though we've not changed supplier recently) and someone from plusnet said in that post, "l've just sent an escalation over to BT's
Migration Services Team" and apparently it was then resolved! All I've been offered is a change of phone number but I've had the same number for 40yrs!. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now but as a customer of plusnet i feel they should be doing more to resolve this? Can anyone help. How do i get bt involved?

[#2]

Hi, @gjam732 

A warm welcome to the forums.

Your tale has a common theme - SKY!!  NOW is part of the Sky group, so the experience of NOW Broadband users being the same as that of Sky users is not surprising.

Though you have had the same telephone number for 40 years, has that always been with the same supplier?  Has it ever been with Sky?  Given that you have had it for 40 years, it would be reasonable to presume that the range holder is BT Retail.

Where did your number come from?

It might help to profile this issue by knowing the original network owner for your phone number. You can find the range holder for your phone number here - UK Phone Number Range Holders

If this number has been with Sky and ONLY Sky / NOW users are having problems, then there is more than a fair chance that the issue is within Sky entirely, in that they did not export the number correctly.  In which case BT's porting team might not be able to help.  Whatever might be do-able from Plusnet's side, I would encourage those having issues with their supplier not routing the call correctly ... to contact THEIR supplier to ask why they are failing to route the call correctly.

If this number was previously with (or belongs to) Sky then there is an issue with their outbound routing; no amount of action by a third party is likely to resolve this issue quickly.  Sky needs to identify where their call routing is failing ... assuming that they are actually attempting to route the call outside of their environment.

[#3]

Thank you.

The range holder is Bt.

I was with Now before switching to Plusnet. I've contacted them and they take no responsibility and tell me that it is a plusnet problem. I've tried arguing the case but to no avail.

Ive looked again on Google and find more similar issues with sky/now including one from a sky mobile that couldn't connect to a specific landline that was resolved and the customer recalled the engineer explaining ...
"He said something like - A switch was overloaded with data - I am no expert so apologies to everyone if this is incorrect but I take it to mean that somewhere on the network between my Sky mobile and my Dad's landline there is a network switch that had become inoperable due to being chock full of log data. I guess they just turned it off and on again! It may come as a surprise to some that network switches are not the passive featureless boxes they appear to be. They store much recent routing information to enable them to optimise routing for future packet routing requests. I have known them in small networks to get stalled because somehow the routing data stored is incorrect, obsolete or corrupted, once flushed out they start working again."

Having a solution (or possible solution) doesn’t help if nobody will take any responsibility.

As for getting those who are finding they can't contact me to contact their provider, I have asked but a far as they are concerned, as they can contact everyone else, in their view its not their problem and they just use their mobile or ring my mobile instead. However, this leaves me not knowing how many callers can't get through and with nowhere to turn.

[#4]

Hi @gjam732

I'm really sorry for how long it's taken to get back to you. We've been quite busy recently so it's taking longer than we'd like to reply.

I can see you've got a case open with our High-Level Escalations team regarding this. I've asked our suppliers to check the porting on their end just to make sure that all is correct

[#5]

Hi giam732,

I am also having the same or a similar problem, I cannot tell if it is only SKY/NOW customers who are not getting thru to my land line but where I can check that has been the case.

I have not had problems previously since I switched to Plus net (but I can't say when this started as only the caller knows and they do not always know how to contact me if they cannot get thru on the landline).

BT have been the Range Holder since 15TH July 94.

I have tried to update my outstanding call 

Question #230340917 - Your Feedback

but I cannot see the "Notification Bell" Therefore I am not able to progress unless I start again.

Not a usual Forum user so apologies if I am not using correctly.

[#6]

Hi Terry.

A warm welcome to the forums.

Was your number previously with Sky or Now?

You can access your ticket history using the PN Ticket link below.

[#7]

Hi Townman,

Yes my last supplier was SKY but I have been over to Plus net for a few months. I typically change supplier at the end of contract to take advantage of any deals. This is the first change where I have experienced this problem.

[#8]

Superuser citation

This topic has been cited by one of the Superusers; the purpose of which is to provide a note for information which might help to focus continued discussion (but might not result in a staff response).

[#9]

Hey there @gjam732 

I am so sorry nobody has picked this up. Is the issue still happening/do you need me to get someone to sort this for you?

[#10]

This is still an issue, now for 2 months. It's with support but they claim they can't do anything. They are even sending me messages saying they tried ringing me on my mobile and it wouldn't let them leave a message (i assume that's so they can update their log that their was action taken) it is UNTRUE. I have had no calls at all....i am happy to share my call log in my phone to show that I'm now being LIED to. I'm guessing they dont know what to do. They basically admitted as much in that their only solution is to offer me a new number but I've had this number for over 40 years...... any help would be appreciated. One of the main callers who can't get through is a relative with Parkinsons and its a major concern.

[#11]

Just noticed you ARE plusnet support. Please speak with <CSA name removed> maybe he can tell you who he tried to call about this as it wasn't me.

Moderator’s Note: Personal information removed but still visible to Plusnet staff as per Forum rules

[#12]

Just thought it right i should update this and apologise as it appears that the mobile number on record was incorrect and the support member had tried to ring what he thought was my mobile but one digit was wrong on the records. However the fault remains and it seems the next step is to send an engineer even though we all agree there is no fault on the line.

[#13]

No worries.

As the issue is with our higher escalations team, there isn't much more I can add as they are the case handler and will deal with it from there for you. If you do need me to give them a prod to pick up the case, please let me know

[#14]

@willcutforth 

It seems utterly useless contemplating sending an engineer out to do nothing relevant to a call routing issue from Sky / Now to a number ported away from Sky / Now ... when the rest of the world can call that subscriber without issue.

As per the SU escalation, there seems to a recurrent problem in the port away from Sky / Now process ... probably somewhere within Sky / Now.  Would referring this to the BTOR porting desk be a more productive approach than wasting a valuable engineering slot?

[#15]

Totally agree. That's what I've been asking for and why i got so frustrated on the phone with the higher escalations team earlier and ended up hanging up on them. I'm no tech whiz but even i can see this is not a line problem!