Not a good start - Sky to PN

[#1]

I placed an order with PN to switch my FTTC/phone from Sky. This is probably the 5th time I've switched back in to PN on the same line so I wasn't anticipating any issues.

However nothing happened on the planned date yesterday.

I got a letter from Sky at the end of Feb about annual price increase and that I could leave in contract without early termination penalty if I notified them within 30 days. So I arranged an online switch to PN with changeover date of 10th March and then phoned Sky to say I was cancelling my phone and broadband with them (as per their letter T&Cs) and switching to PN. I know a switch doesn't normally require contact with the old supplier but in this case I had to to avoid penalty.

Anyway 13 days before switch date I got an SMS from PN to say my broadband order had been delayed so I phoned the next day. I was told their auto-ordering had failed and the order had to be re-done manually (not sure why PN just didn't get on and do that without me having to call?). I was told it was sorted and confirmed the 10th March switch date was still on track. About 3 hours after I called I got an SMS to say my PN router had been ordered so I assumed all was well.

3 days later (10 days before switch) I got another SMS to say there was a problem with my order. I called again and was told that the previous agent hadn't put the order through correctly and it had to be re-done (again!!!). I listened to the tapping of the keyboard for a few minutes and was told all was sorted - (again, why did I have to call and listen to 30 minutes hold music for this to be done?) It was also confirmed that the original 10th March switch date was on schedule.

Fast forward to switch day yesterday and nothing. I'm still getting my broadband and phone from Sky. So I phoned PN this morning. I was told that the order had failed a second time because the phone had been ordered but not the broadband - so how come the order system sent me a router?? The agent I spoke with today said there was only a record of 2 previous order attempts showing, the initial auto one and one manual one. I gave the dates that I had spoken to 2 agents previously who had both said they were re-ordering; the first said she was re-ordering the broadband and the second said he was re-ordering the phone.

I now have to wait up to 10 more days for the switch. My interaction with 3 agents manually trying to get this order sorted leaves me with very little confidence that it will be plain sailing from here. Given that I had to tell Sky I was cancelling in 30 days I'm getting worried that if PN don't successfully complete the switch in the next 10 days, Sky will put a cease on my line and I'll lose service completely.

I know there are issues porting landline numbers back from Sky VOIP to PSTN. When you are told several times that it's all sorted but it's not, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

Ticket #222709484

[#2]

Hi there,

I'm really sorry to see the issues with transferring your service to us from Sky.

I can see your phone line is what's known as SOGEA this means that your broadband's provided on a line which is just used for broadband and not phone calls, likely because you have your number as VoIP.

To transfer & convert a SOGEA line, we have to e-mail the suppliers of our ordering system to place the phone order, as we can't place the order ourselves in the conventional way.

When we e-mail them we manually place the broadband order, which then links up to the phone order they place. In this case, the phone & broadband orders haven't linked up for some reason.

The adviser you've spoken to this morning has restarted this process by replacing your broadband order and emailing our suppliers to replace the phone order which should be done after the weekend.

I'd recommend calling Sky and ask to make sure they don't place a cease on your line. 

Regarding your router, the system didn't automatically order it. An adviser manually sent it on the 25.02.22. 

I'll keep an eye on the ticket 222709484 for you and I'll check back on Monday.

[#3]

@Gandalf 

Thanks for clarifying.

I hope you can appreciate my frustration of having to speak to three separate advisers to try and get it fixed. When you said the phone and broadband orders weren't linked up for some reason I would have expected that the first adviser I spoke to could have resolved that or, at a stretch the second one.

Anyhow, we are where we are so let's hope it goes without a hitch now. 

Thanks for looking into it and keeping tabs on it.

🙂 

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to me @HTeeBee

I can absolutely appreciate the frustration as the order should've gone through smoothly or an issue fixed quickly. 

I'll see where we are on Monday with this and aye fingers crossed things go OK from now on.

Feel free to let me know though if there are further issues in the meantime and I'll be happy to help.

[#5]

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@HTeeBee wrote:

I know there are issues porting landline numbers back from Sky VOIP to PSTN. When you are told several times that it's all sorted but it's not, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

---

@Gandalf wrote:

To transfer & convert a SOGEA line, we have to e-mail the suppliers of our ordering system to place the phone order, as we can't place the order ourselves in the conventional way.

@Gandalf 

Oh my - is this a new complexity in migrating away from Sky?  We've seen Sky blocking migrations by applying service ceases on the line in response to being advised that the subscriber is migrating away ... but I do not recall seeing this scenario before.  Does Sky typically provide the voice service via VoIP (rather than over PTSN) or is this a non-typical case?

I can well imagine that most users will not be aware of technical niceties of how an ISP (such as Sky) facilitates the delivery of their service and the consequential complications in seeking to "re-join" the phone number back to the line and the necessity to reconfigure it for POTS PTSN.

Is there anything which might be done within provisioning to recognise this scenario on the first order failure rather than applying the usual "knee-jerk response" of just resubmitting the same order manually?

[#6]

@Townman 

Sky Talk voice service with FTTC/FTTP is almost exclusively VOIP now.

AIUI, PSTN providers need to have individual 1-2-1 agreements with VOIP suppliers to support porting of landline numbers back to PSTN. Many companies do not have this, resulting in loss of existing landline number when reverting to PSTN. There is a very convoluted workaround involving porting a landline number to a SIP account before switching.

I think this issue will arise more and more as we progress to full VOIP implementation in 2025.

[#7]

This would be nothing to do with migrating from a particular service provider.

We'd handle this in the same way no matter which provider owns a SOGEA line. 

Just had a look and I can see our suppliers have placed the phone order today but it's not matched up with the broadband order we've placed previously, so I've put a cancellation request on the broadband side of things now, so I can manually replace it tomorrow with the details used on the phone order. 

[#8]

@Gandalf 

Really appreciate you following this up at the weekend. Many thanks.

It all sounds very convoluted. Please let me know how you get on tomorrow.

Cheers

[#9 · Accepted solution]

No problem at all @HTeeBee

I've replaced the order now and should hopefully receive a confirmed transfer date within the next 24-48 hours.

Cheers

[#10]

@Gandalf 

Thank you. Whatever you did has finally triggered something at Sky. I had been surprised/concerned that I hadn't seen any of the usual 'sorry you're leaving us' messages from Sky since I initially set up my switch via PN's website on 25th Feb.

I now understand that it was due to the order not going through correctly, despite several attempts. Hopefully all sorted now. Looks like Sky is saying my switch date will be 28th March.  

This morning I had an SMS from Sky saying my 'Broadband and Talk services are switching to a new provider' and I also had an email from them about 'Your Broadband Switch' so both those sound promising.

Unfortunately and slightly worrying I also got another 3 emails from them. One is notifying cancellation of my Talk service and saying my phone line will become inactive on 28th March and I will lose my phone number unless I arrange a switch to another provider. The second email says 'Your Sky Broadband will be removed from your line on the date shown (28th March) unless you've switched to another provider, so it's worth switching providers beforehand.' The 3rd is the same for both phone and broadband.

I'm now worrying that these three cancellation emails means that Sky have placed a cease order on my line!!

[#11]

Thanks for getting back to me @HTeeBee

Awesome, I'm glad to see things are moving now. I can confirm that we've received the same transfer date of 28.03.22 and it can take anytime up to midnight on the day for our service to go live.

There is a cease order on your line, but this is triggered by our transfer order. The confusing e-mails you've received may just be a red herring and confusing indeed. We've sent a request to import your number and that's been accepted. 

Based on this, I wouldn't worry and I'd say that your order's on track and progressing normally. 

Let me know though if there are any issues.

[#12]

@Gandalf 

My Sky FTTC and VoIP went offline 4 hours ago, which is what I was anticipating today. My PN Hub 2 will not connect to FTTC at all. I've also moved the phone cable from Sky's VoIP router to the Openreach Mk4 master socket. The line is dead, there is no dial tone and a 17070 test doesn't connect. I'll update my ticket with this comment as I wasn't expecting the service to be down for this long.

[#13]

From what I can see your order is still in progress with our suppliers and I haven't got an update on it yet.

I appreciate the hassle by the downtime however we would need to allow up to midnight for the work to complete.

[#14]

@Gandalf  Thanks. No need to reply to the PM I just sent you. Cheers

[#15]

Cool. No problem, cheers.