Porting Desk Contact Number

[#1]

Could you please expand on the above suggestion?

Where Plusnet is not the number range holder (which I believe is the case for all numbers) and the existing service has ceased, the number has thus been returned to the range holder’s quarantine pool … how can Plusnet have any influence over that asset?

Surely any port in request needs to go to the number range holder, not Plusnet?

[#2]

This is BT's response to my request, this is not the porting desk, but higher up the chain.

"Unfortunately we are unable to make spare numbers active again to enable porting of them. Can I suggest that the end user approaches their ‘old’ provider explain the situation asking them to re-instate, they would then speak to Openreach to make the WLR asset active after which a port request would be able to submitted."

[#3]

I don't believe there is a way to make the asset active without the ISP taking a WLR subscription with Openreach. Very few (if any) ISP's offer a WLR product on its own so I dont see this as an option.

However, things are supposed to be changing by April 2023 with the 'right to port' , which allows for number porting for up to 30 days after services are ceased. How this is going to work in reality, only OFCOM knows... (or probably doesnt🙄)

[#4]

Actually Ofcom don't know, they have done their usual sitting in their ivory tower & doing a Pontius Pilate on it, here is the decree, Industry make it happen, it's a joke.

They have handed responsibility over to TOTSCo https://totsco.org.uk/ who have to get the specification of the service, build the service & deploy the service across several hundred CP's all within 6 months.

There was a group call on Tuesday which basically said, we don't know what we're doing, we don't know how we're going to do it, but once we've done it make sure your systems are ready to use it.

[#5]

Very interesting!. Looking at the Totsco website, it just seems to be concerned with transfer of details between gaining and losing suppliers. Not sure how that addresses the requirement to allow porting for 30 days after transfer ? 

sounds like par for the course where OFCOM is concerned...

[#6]

So it appears that the Plusnet staff have Zero interest in resolving this issue, or wish to treat their customers who are moving to FTTP with contempt for their request to retain their number.

All I can say to anybody who is moving to FTTP is to port their number away first whilst it is a working number & force Plusnet into a renumber if it's important to you.

[#7]

I’d not be optimistic that after a line renumber that the old number would be any more recoverable than it would be post cessation.

[#8]

Porting your number away is more likely to result in a cease of service rather than force a renumber.

[#9]

I need an answer to this before I order The Plusnet Full Fibre,

it is pretty obvious that if I try to port the number after the Fibre installation, the port will fail and the number will be lost.

If I port the number before the installation, the account might get closed, the line might cease to function thereafter, and they might charge me for breach of contract.

As I understand it, if I was a BT customer, I would be offered a working Digital Voice VoIP port on the modem.

Plusnet have decided not to implement their own version of Digital Voice, but it does not absolve them of responsibility to migrate their customers in a sensible way.

If it is impossible for Plusnet to coordinate Full Fibre Installation and a working number port within a reasonable time frame, Then a sensible compromise would be for Plusnet to generate a line renumber, and allow port of old number in one transaction some time prior to the new installation.

If Plusnet refuse to manage this process, the only other way around it will be changing to a different ISP with a more customer focussed process. This is possibly exactly what the shareholders want to happen, so they can streamline Plusnet further into a minimum cost Fibre broadband provider, and dump the telephony customers.  What is unacceptable is the way they are going about it.

[#10]

This is all doable, but you need Plusnet's assistance, I am shocked that no Staff have not bothered to comment.

[#11]

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@Spire wrote:

As I understand it, if I was a BT customer, I would be offered a working Digital Voice VoIP port on the modem.

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Digital Voice and VoIP are not quite the same thing.  You cannot configure any old VoIP (SIP) service on a BT Hub.

[#12]

@Spire But in most cases they wouldn't be signing into the hub, they would be using a 3rd party SIP server

[#13]

Then a sensible compromise would be for Plusnet to generate a line renumber, and allow port of old number in one transaction some time prior to the new installation.

It would, if only Openreach's 'renumber and export' functionality was reliable!. AIUI it involves synchronising two separate orders, one to renumber and one to port, from different CPs. Since neither CP can see the others order, if something goes wrong on one side then the other can still proceed, leaving a mess!.

Also both a renumber and a port order involve costs, would users be willing to pay ?

[#14]

There are two ways of looking at who should bear the costs.

If Plusnet want to keep Full Fibre customers, who also want to port their old number, then they need to provide that service.

What is it worth to Plusnet to keep a customer ?

Ofcom have mandated that customers can keep their number come April 2023.  Will Plusnet not keep to their licence condition ? 

Shall we notify the competition and markets authority to investigate restrictive and damaging practice over porting ?

What would be the cost to a customer who decides to ask for the renumber/export facility ?

How is that option ordered ?

[#15]

I found the Ofcom licence conditions imposed on a CP. They are as follows:

Number Portability

B3.3 The Regulated Provider shall provide Number Portability within the shortest possible time, including subsequent activation, on reasonable terms and conditions, including charges, to any of its Relevant Subscribers who so request.

B3.4 The Regulated Provider shall ensure in all cases, other than Mobile Number Portability (as to which see Conditions C7.38 and C7.39), porting of these numbers and their subsequent activation shall be completed within one business day once all necessary validation processes have been completed, the network connection is ready for use by the Relevant Subscriber, and the Donor Provider has received a request to activate the porting of these numbers from the Recipient Provider.

B3.5 The Recipient Provider shall request porting from the Donor Provider as soon as it is reasonably practicable after receiving the Relevant Subscriber Request to Port from its new Subscriber.

B3.6 The Regulated Provider shall, pursuant to a request from another Regulated Provider, provide Portability as soon as is reasonably practicable in relation to that request on reasonable terms. Any charges for the provision of such Portability shall be made in accordance with the following principles:

(a) subject always to the requirement of reasonableness, charges shall be cost oriented and based on the incremental costs of providing Portability unless:

(i) the Donor Provider and the Recipient Provider have agreed another basis for the charges, or

(ii) Ofcom has directed that another basis for charges should be used;

General Conditions

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(b) the Donor Provider shall make no charge in relation to Porting System Set-Up Costs or Additional Conveyance Costs;

(c) in respect of Mobile Portability, the Donor Provider shall make no charge or annual fee for ongoing costs relating to registration of a ported Telephone Number or a Relevant Subscriber;

(d) charges levied by the Donor Provider shall be based on the reasonable costs incurred by it in providing Portability with respect to each Telephone Number;

(e) any direct charges to Relevant Subscribers for providing Number Portability do not act as a disincentive to Subscribers against changing their Regulated Provider.

B3.7 Where the Regulated Provider provides Portability in accordance with Condition B3.6:

(a) the Recipient Provider; and

(b) the Portability Transit Provider,

shall, as appropriate, provide Portability on reasonable terms.

B3.8 The Regulated Provider shall, on written request, provide Ofcom with a record of each Telephone Number in relation to which it is providing Portability, specifying the relevant Recipient Provider in each case.

B3.9 The Regulated Provider shall inform the Relevant Subscriber of the date when Number Portability will be provided to that Subscriber.

B3.10 Where Regulated Providers delay the porting of a Telephone Number that is not a Mobile Number for more than one business day or where there is an abuse of porting by them or on their behalf, they shall provide reasonable compensation as soon as is reasonably practicable to the Relevant Subscriber for such delay and/or abuse.

B3.11 The Regulated Provider shall set out in plain English and in an accessible manner for each Relevant Subscriber how Relevant Subscribers can access the compensation provided for in Condition B3.10 above, and how any compensation will be paid to the Subscriber.