Forum Discussion

jamesc77's avatar
jamesc77
On our wavelength
2 months ago

Port phone service (only) away from Virgin Media

Hi good people of the VM Community, I currently have a BB + Fixed Line Phone + TV package with VM, but considering porting the phone number being using on my Fixed Line Phone service across to A&A (...
number porting
Phone
  • Alex_RM's avatar
    Alex_RM
    2 months ago

    Hi jamesc77,

    Thanks for posting 😊

    If you choose to port your line over to another provider this would leave your remaining two services without your bundle discount and would usually result in a higher package price.

    If you're still within contract, you would incur an early disconnection charge for the landline.

    You can discuss re-bundling to a broadband and TV only package by calling 150/ 0345 454 1111.

    Alex_Rm

asim18's avatar
asim18
Rising star
2 months ago

I have also been thinking about porting my VM landline over to A&A.

The quality on VM's VoIP service is absolutely diabolical, it's worse than an actual analogue POTS line!

A&A, or any other VoIP provider such as VOXCloud, offer absolutely brilliant sound quality and support latest HD voice codecs. VM on the other hand is going backwards, they seem to be trying to reduce quality as much as possible while the rest of the world is trying to improve quality. Bizarre.

 

I would have assumed that porting the number to another company wouldnt change your contract, it would just make your VM phone line go dead. Just my assumption.

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    VMs land line system is NOT a VoIP system, it’s just using a different way of presenting the signal to the same old telephone equipment at the VM ‘exchange’.

    • asim18's avatar
      asim18
      Rising star
      2 months ago

      Sorry Tudor from what I've seen it doesnt work like that.

      It's not presenting the signal at the VM "exchange".

      The Hub3 acts as a ATA device (Analogue Telephone Adapter), not the exchange. It's VoIP up to the HUB3 which is then converted to analogue.

      The backend system is all standardised VoIP.

  • jamesc77's avatar
    jamesc77
    On our wavelength
    2 months ago

    That’s what I’m hoping too asim18… With a bit of luck, one of the VM team can confirm, and give an indication of what’s involved. Or maybe someone on here has already been through the (fingers crossed, straight forward) process?!

    Having the flexibility to move ISP without having to have the faff of coordinating number porting feels like a good position to be in. Plus if I were to move, I can keep my local STD code number wherever I end up (although accept this is a lot easier than it used to be too).

     

    My VM contract comes to an end early January, so if I can move the phone service elsewhere, gives me more options/ability to compare like for like (ish) services at renewal time. Plus we now have Openreach Nd CityFibre wholesale infra running past the house, so finally some competition for decent bandwidth broadband (woohoo) - will be interesting to see how VM respond to that competition 😊

  • jamesc77's avatar
    jamesc77
    On our wavelength
    2 months ago

    Interestingly, looking at the latest packages on the VM website, I don’t get any packages offered that include a ‘fixed’ (non-mobile) phone service. Purely speculation, but does suggest packages including phone line isn’t offered to new customers anymore, which might help explain the quality deteriorating?! That said, I’m only going on the information on the headline packages pages. It maybe that if you start an order, phone line can be added… The link to bb + tv + phone takes you to bb + tv packages only though 🤔

    Regardless, I’m going off piste 😁 Just want to know if I can port my phone service elsewhere without having to extend my existing VM contract. If anyone on here has done that, or VM team could confirm, that’d be great 👍🏻 

    • Alex_RM's avatar
      Alex_RM
      Forum Team
      2 months ago

      Hi jamesc77,

      Thanks for posting 😊

      If you choose to port your line over to another provider this would leave your remaining two services without your bundle discount and would usually result in a higher package price.

      If you're still within contract, you would incur an early disconnection charge for the landline.

      You can discuss re-bundling to a broadband and TV only package by calling 150/ 0345 454 1111.

      Alex_Rm

      • jamesc77's avatar
        jamesc77
        On our wavelength
        2 months ago

        Thanks Alex. So basically it sounds like the answer is wait until my contract renewal date, speak to an alternative VOIP phone service provider, port my phone number, and then see what BB + TV packages VM can offer compared to alternatives. With Openreach and  CityFibre now both offering full fibre compared to VMs HFC in my area, it’ll be interesting to see what VM can offer…

        Appreciate the clarification to the query 👍🏻 Have a good rest of weekend.

        Cheers, James

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    2 months ago

    I've seen no evidence of widespread VoIP problems, so I believe your lack of quality is more likely a local issue - same as most broadband and TV problems are. A tech should be able to determine where the problem is, and if it's not local it will be upstream up to and including the regional headend.