Posted 2 days ago

How do I keep my landline number if using sim card for broadband?

How do I keep my landline number if using sim card for broadband?


I have BT broadband - the speeds are really poor and connection fluctuates a lot

My son has EE and he tethers his PlayStation to it for gaming instead of using the home broadband

So I am going to get an EE mobile broadband router so that I can get better speeds.

This will mean that I ditch BT.

Is there a way to keep my old landline number?

(My BT landline is digital voice so I have to plug my phone into the back of the router)
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  1. KodaBear's avatar
    Port your number to a VoIP Provider like A&A Who do line rental for £1.44 a month then 1.5p a minute pay as you go calls.

    Then you can either divert calls from your A&A Number to the number of the SIM in your router and plug your phone direct into that router if it supports it. Or you can get a router with built in VoIP, an ATA Device, or a dedicated VoIP Phone if you want the full landline experience still.

    Unfortunately, contrary to the comment above, BT Won't let an existing customer drop down to landline only anymore, due to the switch to digital voice now relying on a BT Broadband connection.
    _-Richie-_'s avatar
    Unfortunately, contrary to the comment above, BT Won't let an existing customer drop down to landline only anymore, due to the switch to digital voice now relying on a BT Broadband connection.

    Yes they will, BT/EE have the largest number of landline only customers, customers can have landline only regardless if they have Digital Voice or the traditional PSTN, without needing a bundled broadband service.
  2. Protoype's avatar
    BT owns EE, BT are pushing EE as their consumer arm so moving people away from BT over to EE when they can. So switching your number to EE shouldn't be a problem.

    As others have said you can downgrade to a landline only BT contract, though the agents will try talk you out of it, give you duff information or upsell some other EE product. You might have to keep calling back to you get a sane agent.

    Are you and your son in the same household? I ask because location to the mast/basestation effects signal reception, thus if he lives somewhere else you might not get the same speeds.

    Are you on fibre of ADSL? If you're still on a standard copper wire I'd get BT to inspect it if you are getting drop outs and massive variations in speed. Water ingress into the taps (line connection) can cause drop outs, speed reductions and so forth. If you're on fibre I'd also push to get BT to physically inspect the cable and diagnose it.
    Helpful567's avatar
    Author
    My son and I are in the same house - so I know that I can get 80 with EE but 10-15 with btinternet.

    I was with plusnet but when I complained about speed, they had to contact BT to sent openreach engineers.

    I then went with BT because I though that their own openreach engineers would be more likely to sort things out. They have been called out several times when our internet was really poor (could not open a simple webpage) but our speeds are still slow.

    Have tried vodafone, O2 and 3 sims - slow speeds
    EE sims have really good speeds (Strangely - the first time that I was aware of how good it was, was when the openreach engineer showed me the speed on his phone)
  3. _-Richie-_'s avatar
    You can cancel the BT broadband whilst still keeping the landline and number with BT, it's a separate service.
  4. AndyRoyd's avatar
    Voipfone, Andrews&Arnold and Invoco can port landline number(s) from Openreach-based & some other providers to their VOIP / SIP service.

    Unless recently changed:
    VF zero-cost port and £3.60/m.
    A&A £15 port and £1.44/m; possibly plus one-off £1.20 activation fee.
    Invoco zero-cost port and £1.32/m.

    Most include voicemail at zero cost; some will fwd voicemail as freebie audio files to an e-address.
    Diverted or outgoing calls are optional at minimal cost.

    Use any of those services on any and multiple internet-connected app-based devices that have a speaker & microphone,
    and/or via internet-connected dedicated adapter if wanting to use existing landline handsets.
  5. itsillogical's avatar
    Sky screwed me when just changing my account to another account at the same address. Told me I had to go to BT to get my landline (VoIP) number back. Went to A&A and paid £30 to do the paperwork and port, but they too screwed up so I have lost my 24 year old phone number, and diddly squat from A&A for my £30.
    _-Richie-_'s avatar
    The number will return to the original range holder, who first issued it?
  6. wpj's avatar
    AS above, A&A are what we use. Also voicemail to email.

    EE "unlimited" is expensive and capped at 600Gb/month 5G before going down to 4G. There are EE 12-18 month business options (which I will be doing for my son's flat whenever he decides to move in...) which are much cheaper.
    AndyRoyd's avatar
    Comparatively expensive yes, but there are options for less-limited unlimited:

    EE handset sims have the 600GB/m unlimited limit,
    but its products having vomit-inducing-titles of "Home 4GEE/5GEE" have a more flexible limited unlimited:
    Unlimited Plans are for personal, non-commercial use only. We will consider usage above 1000GB/month to be non-personal use and have the right to apply traffic management controls to deprioritise your mobile traffic during busy periods or to move you to a business plan
    where EE business plans are limited to....
    1000GB/month
    so presumably same limited unlimited, but at more cost,
    unless EE charges less for its contradictory business Home 4/5 vomit, in which case it would be encouraging its product-abusing Home customers to exceed the limited unlimited to benefit from implied forced lesser business pricing.
    What a shambles of an arrangement.
  7. dcx_badass's avatar
    Yep, I've used them in the past, no issues and fast support.
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