Move broadband to another line (not moving house)

[lightattheend]

My 83yr old step-mother has two phone lines at her house. One line (Line 1) is for voice calls and the provider for that line is BT, with whom my step-mother has a call package. The second line (Line 2) was a fax line for when my dad used to run a business from home. When he got broadband with TalkTalk, it was added to Line 2.

My dad passed away and subsequently to make matters more complicated, my step-mother was somehow persuaded to have a TalkTalk phone package added to Line 2, even though that line is used for calls. I wasn't party to that call but given my step-mother has memory issues I can understand how she might have just agreed to it. Anyway, after a lot of back and forth we finally managed to get the call package removed from Line 2, so now my step-mother has broadband only with TalkTalk on Line 2.

Now, our intention is to get the second line at her house removed/disconnected and the TalkTalk broadband service moved to Line 1 alongside her voice calls, but we seem to be stuck as far as TalkTalk making this happen. On the first enquiry we were told simply "No, this can't be done. You'll have to keep broadband on Line 2". On calling a second time we were told that the only way to do it would be to cancel the broadband package completely and start a new broadband contract on Line 1 and that would entail my step-mother having a new email address amongst other things (something she doesn't want as she has a sentimental attachment to the email address my dad originally set up).

I get the feeling this is more of a policy and procedure block rather than a technical block, or am I missing something? Is getting a TalkTalk broadband service moved from one line to another (without moving house) that complex? Any help much appreciated.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi lightattheend

Can you add the account number(s) to your community profile and I can see what options are available. 

Thank you.

[ferguson]

The Data Only option applies to certain Full Fibre products. I was working on the basis that your step-mother does not have such a service, please confirm which current package she is on. 

[lightattheend]

In an ideal world I would suggest to her that she switch to another broadband provider, however because she's adamant she wants to keep my father's talktalk.net email address, that isn't an option.

Looking at talktalk.co.uk, it appears the company offers a number of packages for which they quote "Data only: no phone line - just pure broadband". I read that to mean that for your chosen phone line/number, TalkTalk will provide you with broadband only (no calls). However, for whichever of those four "just broadband" packages you choose, when you click 'Next' you end up at a page offering one of two different packages, both of which include calls. So despite suggesting you can have broadband only (i.e. TalkTalk sits their broadband service on an existing line that's with a different line rental/call provider), TalkTalk's wizard forces you into a broadband AND calls package. What I'm failing to understand is why TalkTalk does this? Is it simply their policy to do this as opposed to there being a legitimate technical reason for it?

Interestingly, I have tried the TalkTalk wizard with a variety of different postcodes around the UK and the result is always the same, i.e. choose a "Data only: no phone line - just pure broadband" package, confirm your address and TalkTalk then offers two broadband AND landline packages.

[ferguson]

The fact is that the TalkTalk service includes a landline, even though you may not be using it at present. If you want to keep the number which is used on Line 1 then that you best bet is probably to cancel the TalkTalk service altogether and take out a broadband service with your BT line.