topic Re: Second phone line in Home Phone

Second phone line

wenbow — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:02:15 GMT

Hi, this may be in the wrong place - apologies if so. Possibly a hypothetical question, but I would be grateful for some advice.

For background: I have worked from home for 15 years, using a phone / broadband line that was installed and is currently paid for by my employer. However, they are now planning to do away with these lines, leaving me to use my home set-up.

This will unfortunately be difficult, as we live at the end of a pretty long line (still nearly a mile of copper to the cabinet) with speeds of around 16mbps down and a mere 1mbps up. My husband also works from home (we don't run a business, we are both employed). He uses our home line and at times he struggles. Whilst he is working I am forbidden from using the internet for my mobile phone, home pc or catch-up tv! So both of us trying to share the line to work could prove frustrating.

So, the question! The line is currently supplied / leased by Daisy. When they 'cut me off', would it be possible for me to take it on as a second home line on a second contract? Are two lines even allowed? And if so, how would I go about it - as the last thing we need is for our main phone line to be cut off!!

I think I can supply the phone number of my 'work' line if it helps, and assume it is just a normal OpenReach line on our exchange and cabinet. The technicalities are beyond me however.

I am still negotiating with my employer, hoping they will take pity on me, but I fear the worst and thought it as well to have some sort of plan B.

Any thoughts or ideas gratefully received!

Many thanks in anticipation.

Re: Second phone line

Gliwmaeden2 — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:56:46 GMT

In lockdown there were quite a lot of promotions for second lines, precisely because people were working from home so much.

Things have moved on, and now the pressure is to have Full Fibre.

You'd need to order Full Fibre with VOIP from Talktalk, and there should be sufficient capacity with one line to cover your work and leisure activities for a household.

So you are probably looking at a significant upgrade rather than an extra copper line these days.

Re: Second phone line

wenbow — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:04:36 GMT

Hi Gliwmaeden

Thanks for this. I would order Full Fibre in a flash if I could! But unfortunately we do not have access here, we are rather out in the sticks and still have a mile of copper cable from the cabinet.

Would you be able to bump my post up for the Admins to take a look at my query please?

Appreciate you looking though, thanks again.

Re: Second phone line

Karl-TalkTalk — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:12:27 GMT

The 2nd line could not be transferred from Daisy as such, you would have to cancel that line and place an order through our teams for a second line. Let them know that you want to keep the original number so they can arrange for the number to be ported across (if you want to keep it) .

There will be a little time between the old service ending and a new one beginning, based on the availability of Openreach engineers to make the switch.

Thanks

Karl.

Re: Second phone line

wenbow — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:14:55 GMT

Thanks Karl,

Good to know that it will be an option, as I had read stuff suggesting that two lines in to a property were not allowed (despite me having two already...)

My main fear is that somehow I'll end up losing our main home line in the confusion. If I place an order, do I just need to give the phone number of the 'work' line, or is there some other identifier for it? And can the second account be in my name, or should I put my husband's name down for it?

I'm still negotiating with work - ever the optimist - so hopefully I won't even need to do it, but just in case!

Many thanks for your help.

Re: Second phone line

Gliwmaeden2 — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:36:55 GMT

Yes, you need to make it very clear that this is in addition to your current line, not instead of as it would be easy for them to make that mistake.

Staff will not be back before Monday now, @wenbow. Safer to wait for their response re which name to put in charge of the account.

I know that some people have several accounts in their name, but at several addresses.

As I said, this is less usual as a set up nowadays - 5 years ago it was very popular and actively promoted by the telecoms companies. Very hard to find out any recent information for doing this now with copper lines.

Re: Second phone line

Karl-TalkTalk — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 06:54:56 GMT

As advised, you do need to make it clear when placing the order that this is for a 2nd additional line.

Karl.