I have just been told by Talk Talk when I tried to find availability
"Your phone number was originally provided by a company other than BT (maybe a cable company). We don't have arrangements with these companies to transfer your number so unfortunately at the moment we are unable to give you TalkTalk."

I have been using Talk Talk together with 18866 for the last 2 years for my cheaper calls.

I moved my NTL number to a BT account some 2 years ago and so that number belongs either to BT or to me not to NTL. Am I right?

Who actually owns your telephone number - yourself or the phone company?

John JP wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2006 at 10:37pm:

I moved my NTL number to a BT account some 2 years ago and so that number belongs either to BT or to me not to NTL. Am I right?

Different telephone providers have different prefixes. Numbers can be ported between providers but the number is still allocated to that provider.

For example, the prefix 07980 is allocated to Orange. That means all numbers with that prefix route to Orange. If a number is ported to another network, the call goes to Orange and is then forwarded on to the 'new' network by Orange. I presume that geographical numbers work in a similar way.

Within each geographical code each provider has blocks of numbers allocated to them, usually in blocks of 10,000 numbers. So for example 01234 24 is allocated to BT and 020 7813 is allocated to Telewest.

The easiest way to find out is to enter a number in to UK Phone Information.  ;)

The same principle still applies whether its a mobile or a landline number.

If you see this thread it will explain reasons why this is (specifically reply #5).