Porting Desk Contact Number

[#1]

@FlossyThePig  I don't believe the One Touch Switch proposals address or even relate to the OFCOM requirement to allow numbers to be kept available for 31 days to be ported to another service. @MisterW expresses the same view in message #20 of this thread.

As I said earlier in the thread unless we are informed otherwise Plusnet are doing nothing about it and probably aren't too bothered knowing how toothless and Ineffective OFCOM are.

[#2]

Just to offer a slightly different perspective on this than Ofcom's, they were given £20m from the Government to implement a system, they chose Blockchain, they had 2 years to come up with a proof of concept, they failed.

So they then gave 'Industry' 2 years & no money to come up with an alternative, which has got further, but with such a ridiculous timeframe was never going to hit the target, although it allows Ofcom a stick to beat them with.

[#3]

I would suggest that when the media get their teeth into this issue, and larger and larger numbers of frustrated customers, begin to feel abused by the greed of the corporate untouchables, things will change.  Like me, they might even vote with their feet.

I have moved to Vodafone. They have a terrible untrained customer service, so you need to know exactly what you are doing and what questions to ask them, to get the services you want.  Having said that, I have ended up with Full Fibre Broadband, VoIP/sip/ATA keeping my number.  The Openreach GPON installation went like a dream and I had virtually no break in service.  The number port occurred later on that same day.  The cost before and after is about the same.

So I would say competition sort of works, if you know the limitations of the various companies you are dealing with.  The problem with most of the utility regulators is that they were set up with too narrow a remit.  Too focussed on short term headline grabbing cost controls, with almost zero regard to technical standards and long term strategic goals.  That is probably because their master's have no idea about these concepts.  Not many people write to their MP, but that is what is needed, if you want things to change. 

[#4]

I came across some information from TOTSCo the other day on the new switching process. As has been said earlier, in principle the new process is separate from the 'right to port'. However they do cover how they expect the porting to work :-

AIUI at present, when a phone is ceased, the CP must submit a 'repatriation' request within 2 weeks, to return the number to the rangeholder, who then quarantines the number for a further period, up to 31 days.

The new process proposes that the CP does NOT submit a 'repatriation' for at least 31 days, once that's done then the RH does not need to quarantine as the required period will have already expired.

I assume that, at the moment, porting fails once the number has been repatriated and under the new system a porting request to the losing CP will work since the number is still present in their systems.

[#5]

@MisterW 

Thank you for your insight into the landline porting process and how it should work.

However, do we know if Plusnet are implementing this process? It would be useful to have a Plusnet input to this thread so that customers are aware of what the process is.

[#6]

@jgb It's only been 8 months since I started this thread & I know the 'Staff' are busy but 8 months busy seems excessive.

I have a Plusnet customer to port a number away, it would be nice for 'staff' to advise when the best day/time would be to do that, on the day they are leaving Plusnet, the day after, or anytime within the 31 day period as defined by Ofcom

[#7]

Well still without any Staff involvement I can advise that we successfully ported a number out of Plusnet at 10am on the day that their service was due to expire, they did lose Broadband access at that time, although bizarrely the phone still worked & they were able to make outgoing calls on it, although incoming came in via our service.