Yet More on Cellular Number Portability

RadBlock writes "The Wireless Supersite has posted an interesting column analyzing number portability. Wireless carriers have been stalling on the availablity of number portability for years now. The final deadline is supposed to be in November, and it will allow you to keep your wireless phone number when you change carriers (one number for life... the ultimate!)"

Comments

well, to each their own

[Anonymous Coward]

one number for life... the ultimate!

I would say sex with twins is the ultimate, but hey, we all have priorities.

And yet,

[llamalicious]

sometimes I look forward to leaving certain phone numbers behind.

Once someone knows your number, changing it's the only way get it away from them. Can't really block any single person from fucking with your phone number, they can always call from a different place.

Sounds like just another way to add a surcharge to our phone bills. Like we need another.

Wow, must be Friday, I'm bitter and sarcastic... time for beer and wings!

Why is LNP such a big deal for cellular?

[ckuhtz]

LNP resistance in the U.S. is marketing FUD.

Other countries are already doing this for a year or two now. Take Germany. The carrier is allowed to charge you a fee (something like 25-50 euros), which often gets comp'ed by the new carrier.

This has nothing to do with technology. It's solved. It's carriers trying to keep customers hostage. Nothing more.

Re:Does it really matter?

[MoOsEb0y]

True, but you have to pay for those. If the wireless companies could cooperate, you wouldn't have to pay for this. Maybe that's why they aren't cooperating.

The Ultimate?

[slagdogg]

one number for life... the ultimate!

It's only the ultimate if you get a cool number ... like (663) 244-7467 ... aka (ONE) BIG-PIMP

Re:The Ultimate?

[Just Some Guy]

I swear to God, I'm not making this up:

My old data line was 833-8258 - 83FUCKU. When my wife and I got married, she called our telco to see if we could keep the number, but we were moving to a different part of the city and get to get a different prefix. She told the operator that was too bad, because we had this really great number that spelled...

The operator panicked. She called her supervisor, who also panicked. The pulled all numbers containing "38258" from national (well, regional, I guess) circulation, which they apparently do for all numbers known to spell something bad.

I felt kind of bad for causing that to happen. It was a good number.

That's exactly why cell companies don't want it

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

One of the big reasons to not switch your cell phone company is that you lose your number, and have to deal with changing over to a new number.

If I could keep my number, my incentive to stay with RipOff Cellular goes down, and I'm more likely to switch to UselessMinutes Wireless Inc.

In the end, there's probably just as many people who want to switch from A to B as want to switch from B to A. But even though the numbers of subscribers might remain fairly steady, it is more expensive to lose one customer and gain another than to just keep one.

One number

[Nikkos]

"(one number for life... the ultimate!)"

One number to find you.
One number for life.
One number for the world to call
And in the darkness (and light, and evening, and morning) bind you.

Nikkos

More Options Are ALWAYS a "Good Thing"

[SUB7IME]

I have noticed that some people are complaining, "But if I always have the same phone number, then I can't avoid all those pesky telemarketers/ex-girlfriends/stalkers/parents/lawy ers/etc."

What these people are ignoring is that you merely have the choice to keep the same number - not an obligation. If it behooves you to keep the same number, you may do so; if not, you can drop the number just like you do now.

Giving the public more options is a "Good Thing."

Re:Does it really matter?

[gpinzone]

Yeah, but since it's the UK, I'll bet those are really crooked teeth.

One Number For Life?

[handy_vandal]

"... (one number for life... the ultimate!)"

Not good enough. The true ultimate number would last into the afterlife. That way, we could call dead people, and not have to remember a special post-mortem phone number.

Much superior to the old postal method of contacting dead people, via the dead-letter office ....

Welcome to routing problems with your phone

[asmithmd1]

Recently the company I work for changed from the ILEC to a CLEC that only provided service within our LATA, of course we wanted to keep our existing number. Certain other people were not able to call in, we could call out but they couldn't call us, it turns out companies that used MCI as their IXC were the ones who couldn't call us. MCI had a problem with their LIDB. You are going to need to know this stuff to diagnose these problems. And you think service is bad now

Re:perhaps a good idea

[laymil]

you're a very confused person when it comes to wireless tech.

of the list of wireless standars you list, at least 3 of them are made up, or bastardizations of ones already on the list.

Why do you think providers love the heavily fragment market of CDMA, TDMA, CDMA PCS, TDMA PCS, Sprint PCS, iDEN & GSM in the U.S.? Switching is hell.

Lets see. PCS stands for Personal Communications Services. CDMA PCS==CDMA TDMA PCS==TDMA Sprint PCS==CDMA. iDEN works over TDMA. So, you list 7 different cellular network types. I'm telling you there are really only 3 in the US. Unless you want to count plain old analog cellular.

Thanks for playing.