How Do I Find Out My Phone Line Provider!!

LOCI

I have phoned BT and they cant seem to tell me who it is?
So how do i find out?

Reply 1

thegman89

Ask the people that were there before you?? Or landlord maybe?

Reply 2

Phil.

Try calling 150 from the line. If it's a Virgin line you'll get through to the options on their support line, not sure what it is with BT.

Reply 3

LOCI

Rte its virgin.....i just called up virgin lol!!! hopefully i we wont have to pay connextion charge for the new line from BT....thats what my housemate is saying anywyas lol thx

Reply 4

Phil.

The BT connection charge is only if they have to do any significant work to provide the line. If there's already a BT master socket somewhere (it might not be obvious it's a different line - ours looks identical to the Virgin point and all the other extensions around the house) you may get away with paying nothing for connection. Otherwise it's £125 :frown:

.

Just be careful with contracts depending on how long the tenancy agreement on the house is - BT will want a 12 month contract to be signed for the line to be activated, but you might get away with a monthly contract with Virgin as the service is already active (if there's an active phone line, chances are the Internet/TV is too). Best to get in contact with the landlord about it; it might be the previous occupant's service and I doubt they'd appreciate a huge phone bill come through or anything like that! :biggrin:

The fact there's a Virgin line there doesn't mean there's a BT line though - Virgin do their own thing with regards to phone lines in their cabled areas.

Before you order a new BT line, it might be worth checking how far you are from the exchange (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php) to see what services you can get. As you've got a Virgin landline you should also be on a cabled street so it may be the case that you can get anywhere between 0.5 - 8Mbps on a BT landline or 20Mbps (soon 50Mbps) on cable.

Hope that made at least a bit of sense :p:

Reply 5

LOCI

yh dats kwl....i was wondering whether other companies such as sky rent out the line from BT to be able to provide der own services....also is it within the rites of virgin to lie to me over the phone about who the provider of the line is.....cos my housemate is certain that its not virgin and well i asked them on the phone and they said it is!!!

Reply 6

Phil.

As far as I'm aware, if you can get through to Virgin on 150 the line it's a cable telephone line. Why is he certain it's not Virgin?

Reply 7

unknown1557

LOCI

Some companies do take over the line to provide phone service. The main examples I can think of is Talk Talk and Tiscali. If your local telephone exchange has their equipment, then your line is moved over to it (LLU or local loop unbundling). As a result, you cannot order broadband from another ISP. This is an example of a fully unbundled service (metallic path facility or MPF).

As far as I know, Sky still uses BT wholesale equipment to provide telephone services, and the Easynet LLU for broadband. This is an example of a partially unbundled service (shared metallic path facility or SMPF).

BT and Virgin master sockets look identical (they are both NTE5 style ones), the only difference is that BT has their own logo, and Virgin Media have theirs. As Phil. says, if you can dial 150 and get through to Virgin, your with them.