Getting Old Phone Number Back

[weirdjim]

I terminated my AT&T (actually PacBell) number about ten years ago, but just checked and it has not been reissued; I'm still the last listed owner. My home phone is now voip but both our cell numbers are AT&T. WIthout going through a whole bunch of malarky, is there a way for me to get that number back so I can have a second line on my voip service?

Jim

 

[AdamZ]

Jim: Pretty sure you can go to your VIOP carrier and set up a 2nd line and tell them that you want that number. since it is a number you pick vs. one they assign they may charge you a "vanity" fee to set the number up. We use ring central voip at our office and that was not an issue for them.

 

[asicer]

Jim: Pretty sure you can go to your VIOP carrier and set up a 2nd line and tell them that you want that number. since it is a number you pick vs. one they assign they may charge you a "vanity" fee to set the number up. We use ring central voip at our office and that was not an issue for them.

And if they won't, find a carrier who will and then port in the number after you have it.

 

[flyingron]

Yep, the two posts pretty much describe the way it works. If the number is truly unbound, anybody with a presence in the area can give it to you as a vanity number. If the number is tied to a carrier, you may have to subscribe to them and then port it to a carrier with presence.

There's no rights to "numbers you used to have." The only right is to port a number you are currently subscribing to.

 

[Ghery]

When we changed from a wired land line (through one carrier) and shifted the house phones to VOIP (with a different carrier) we kept the old number. No problem at all. You should be able to request the old number without any problem.

 

[denverpilot]

You MIGHT find that it’s still in a “pool” assigned to the original carrier to issue as needed.

If that’s the case you may have to specifically do business with them to activate it, then port it away immediately and pay for the month with them.

That’s all I have to add to what’s already been said, but agree that most carriers can simply add it to the list of numbers you’ve ported in to them in the VoIP world.

I’m a bit of a phone number hoarder. Comcast gave me twenty to test a new circuit. I never gave them back. LOL.

 

[asicer]

I’m a bit of a phone number hoarder. Comcast gave me twenty to test a new circuit. I never gave them back. LOL.

Gosh, you must get a lot of spam calls...

 

[flyingron]

Gosh, you must get a lot of spam calls...

The wierdest one is that we have the number 877 RON-MARG. One evening I start getting phone calls for people asking to donate to Nashville relief. WTF? I turn on CMT and sure enough they are giving out MY phone number periodically (interspersed with the correct one). MARG happens to be the same digits as NASH.

 

[weirdjim]

I went them one better. There is an outfit called NumberBarn that will search for your preferred combination. I found one for my correct area code and city with the suffix 7388 which I've wanted for the company for forty years. Cost me $20 and worth every penny. It is in the process of being ported over to my voip carrier as we type.

Jim

 

[asicer]

I found one for my correct area code and city with the suffix 7388 which I've wanted for the company for forty years.

That’s a curious combination:
https://phonespell.org/combo.cgi?n=7388

 

[flyingron]

It doesn't spell anything. It's the same as the N number on that baby blue 182. It's a ham radio (and before that telegraphy) thing... 73 is Best Regards. 88 is love and kisses.

 

[weirdjim]

The company is RST Engineering (Kit Avionics). Telegraphy (ham radio) RST is a reporting term Readability (0-5), Signal (or strength 0-9), T quality of Tone (0-9)

The ham call is WX6RST. The WX is the teletype abbrvtn for Weather. RST as above.

The baby blue 182 is N73CQ. 73 as above in Ron's explanation. CQ is the ham radio telegraphy abbrvtn for "Seek You" , or calling all stations. 2 meter dipole in the starboard fiberglass wingtip, Kenwood TM-241 plumbed into the aircraft headsets through the RST-564 audio panel.



Jim

 

[Zeldman]

The wierdest one is that we have the number 877 RON-MARG. One evening I start getting phone calls for people asking to donate to Nashville relief. WTF? I turn on CMT and sure enough they are giving out MY phone number periodically (interspersed with the correct one). MARG happens to be the same digits as NASH.

So.... how much money did you take in.??

 

[denverpilot]

I’m the other Colorado overlay area code from the Brain Injury Institute. Been getting calls from, not kidding here, brain injured people... who can’t figure out there’s two overlapping area codes and to call the other one, same last seven digits, for a couple of decades now.

It’s kinda entertaining and kinda sad. A few can’t even copy the full number. How they managed to even call me, I don’t know how they did it.

 

[flyingron]

So.... how much money did you take in.??

I thought about that for about ten seconds before I just changed the outgoing message to give the proper number. I'm just not crooked enough.

Years ago, I was shopping for office furniture at an savings and loan liquidation auction (great place to get nice stuff cheap). They had an ATM toward the end of the day and I bid $20 on it and won it. It sat around for a few years until I gave it away to someone. Amusingly, there was a news story where someone had placed an ATM in a shopping mall in CT, sabotaged the other ones, and waited for people to use theirs. Here's the fun part (that I was not devious enough to come up with): they actually issued money for all those transactions. They then took all the acccount numbers and pins down to NYC and used ATMs there to suck as much as they could out of people's accounts. Of course, as soon as this happened everybody who knew i had an ATM sent me a copy of the article.