Number portability to VOIP

[Bandit]

I have isdn2e with multiple subscriber numbering (MSN) and would like to regrade to broadband + VOIP. So my main ISDN number I can transfer to the newly regraded analogue line & the obvious thing to do is transfer one or two of my MSN numbers as VOIP numbers. The service is offered by most VOIP providers to port BT numbers from BT to their VOIP service. Amazingly it seems that if I take a VOIP service from anyone except BT I can take my BT MSN numbers with me. But I was told yesterday by BT Business sales that I couldn't transfer any of my BT MSN numbers to BT VOIP!! Is that really right? It's a crazy world we live in & that is crazy. I thought BT were trying to sell their VOIP services... seems something has gone wrong somewhere.

[minicheddar]

Hi Bandit,

Number portability is currently not available under Broadband Voice due to technical limitations. That said, there is a strong possibility of it being offered in the near future.

C.

[Bandit]

But this is a service that is being offered by almost every other voip provider. Fill out a form & they'll transfer your BT number to their voip service. So is that vapourware as far as they're concerned or is this a problem specific to BT voip? How long is 'In the near future'? Days, weeks, months? Thanks

[minicheddar]

I'm sorry, we don't have any official announcements to make about number portability at this time.

C.

[stevembsl]

We required a facility like this but to port our office number to Hosted VOIP (as you get an 087xx number) and apparently there has been a lot of calls requesting this feature. Currently at this time that does not exist.

However we have been told this service was due out April 1st of this year (2008), but so far not surfaced. It IS due for release "soon" but no concrete date has been set, I'm thinking (hoping) it will arrive soon.

So in the short term until this arrives we will be purchasing a call forward service from BT to transfer our office number to our VOIP number. Although you do have to pay for a small fee for each call forwarded when people phone your office number. Understandable, this is not a good idea if you receive a lot of calls.

[minicheddar]

BT is aware Number Portability is important to our customers.

It will be officially announced when this feature becomes available.

At this time, it is possible to order as many Geographic Numbers to each of your lines as you wish and as mentioned, there are a range of possible divert options.

[stevembsl]

Thanks for the update,

We do not want to order new geographic phone numbers as I think in a lot of cases companies do not want to change their number because of the cost/time involved in changing all their stationary and informing our large customer contact base our new number(s).

So as I appreciate there is a use for some companies ordering geographic phone numbers, in our case we would like the number portability when it comes out

Kind Regards,

Steve