Landline number lost - owned by Sky

[sanpat]

Hi all,

I moved to my house about 10years ago and signed up with Sky for landline/broadband. They gave me a new landline connection and landline number at that time. About 19 months ago I moved landline/broadband from Sky to TalkTalk and TalkTalk was able to take my landline number across as I had requested. Last month I then decided to move my landline/broadband from TalkTalk to Vodafone. I requested that Vodafone port my landline across as part of this move, but this did not happen and they gave me a new landline number. My elderly parents (both in their 80's) live with me and they rely on this landline to receive calls from their Doctor, the hospital and family/friends. Losing the number has really had an adverse effect on them and I don't want it to stress them out further - it's the last thing they need at their age.

I have demanded that Vodafone retrieve my old landline number but they have not been able to do it.

Their explanation is roughly this:

Vodafone requested an active line takeover from TalkTalk and also the old telephone number. However, TalkTalk had already cancelled the line before Vodafone took it over. So Vodafone could not port over my old landline number. 

TalkTalk and Vodafone are telling me that my old landline number has reverted back to its original issuer (Sky in this case), so they are not able to recover it.

So I called to Sky and asked them to recover than number for me (assuming that I sign up for a new landline/broadband contract with them). However, they have said they have no way to recover the number, even though they are the owner of that number (i.e. that landline number is in the Sky number range).  They said BT might be the only ones that can get it back.

I have spoken to the BT community and their moderator has confirmed they cannot get that number back as it doesn't belong to them (because it's in Sky's number range).

I have confirmed  the number is in a number range owned by Sky by downloading a number range spreadsheet direct from Ofcom here:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering/numbering-d...

My number is: 01895 312 XXX

Does anyone know if Sky really would be able to recover the number for me?

I don't understand why they cannot recover the number as it's within their number range.

Any help would be much appreciated as this has been really stressful thus far.

Thank you

[Highlinder]

@sanpatThis has nothing to do with Sky at all this was between your old provider and new one to sort out. The number is just part of a pool of numbers that move around as people move from provider to provider.

Some might have reasons for not porting, but this is something you have to take up with that provider and give you a chance then to cancel the move to the new provider at the time. But in hindsight your new provider should have told you that they are not able to port your number over at the time.

[Mark39]

I agree with @Highlinder , I'm afraid. Sky may have a pool of unused numbers allocated to them, but to my knowledge they have no way of selecting a particular number from the pool and assigning it to a new connection.

[sanpat]

I accept that this is not Sky's fault.

However, the situation I am now in is this:

I have escalated my complaint with Vodafone and they have tried to retrieve that number. They are saying there is now no way for them to get the number back.

TalkTalk have said that now the number is disconnected they cannot get the number back as they don't control/own the number.

I have tried BT to see if they can recover the number, but they said they cannot as it's not in their number range (it's in Sky's number range).

So now I just want to get the number back and it seems that Sky might be the only one who can do it for me, as that phone number is in the number range owned by Sky (i.e. Sky own that number and are the only provider who has control over it).

So I need to determine if Sky will be able to get the number back (since they own it) ?

(obviously I would be happy to sign up to a new contract with Sky as part of the process).

[sanpat]

@Highlinder and @Mark39 thanks for your responses.

Do you know how I can go about getting a definitive answer on whether Sky is able to assign a particular number within their number range to a  specific customer?

Are there perhaps any Sky technical folk that you can point me to?

Many thanks

[Mark39]

There's no access to the techies via the Community, but you could call. You can find the number via the 'need more help' dropdown at the bottom of this page:  https://www.sky.com/help