Moving Phone From Virgin To BT

[#1]

Any experts here on this?

My Sister-in-law has Virgin Broadband and Phone and wants to change to BT after continuous Virgin price rises. She wants to keep the same phone number. She used to be on BT for phone and broadband but moved to Virgin after a bit of pressure selling.

Is it as straightforward as just asking BT to take over the phone supply? I suppose the copper will still be there after all. Will there be any problem keeping the number?

[#2]

@quelquod Does she have a BT phone line still attached to her property? Where is she moving the BB to? If the phone number was originally with BT, then apart from Virgin possibly giving her a bit of a run around, they should be able to reclaim the number, as they, presumably, are the range-holder.

[#3]

I suppose that the original BT line is still there - Virgin all comes on their own fibre and there’s a box of some sort connected from there to the house phone now but I can’t think of any reason that the copper line would have been removed?

She’s thinking of taking broadband from BT too (FTTC) but since it would come on the separate BT wiring she’s planning to get it going before cancelling Virgin entirely, so just swapping the phone to begin with.

What does “range-holder” mean?

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Is/was her original BT connection overhead or underground - if it was OH, the line should still be visible.

A combined phone/FTTC contract is all she would probably get anyway. You cannot 'just swap the phone' -  the two services are interlinked, and cannot be split between providers.

Range-holder = the Communication Provider originally issued with a block of phone numbers.

[#5]

Thanks for that. It is/was underground.

Oh yes -what I meant was that she wouldn’t cancel the Virgin broadband until the BT one was working OK (just because things happen!), With Virgin the phone is an (expensive!) option so she could cancel that without also cancelling their broadband and just move to BT then cancel Virgin altogether. She’s paying >£70 a month to Virgin just for phone and broadband without TV or anything so it’s a pricey route!

[#6]

OK. Just bare in mind that she could face a £50.00 reconnection fee - I don't know if BT might waive it if she is taking both phone and broadband with them.

[#7]

@jab1 thanks John, so I’ve worked through the BT site and it seems that a reconnection charge and even a new line cost (!) is waived plus a reduced first year monthly cost if you’re a new customer switching to BT so quite an attractive offer. The only minor drawback is that you have to take the new Digital Voice type phone service so it depends where you want your phone and router whether this is OK or a nuisance. But that’s coming anyway and also you’re right about retaining the number, seems it would be OK.