Can my phone company withdraw my number? Help!

Why not just get another mobile carrier and transfer the phone # there? At least, you can do that in the US.

can't port
Thanks Jespah,
we have number portability here too but you cannot port a number that is cancelled. Once a number is cancelled it is put into a holding/non use state for six months as i understand it. My company says they can not even make the "priority" number into a normal one and just issue a new sim card! They also cannot "hold" my number and divert to a new one. Looks like i'm a bit stuck. What i am interested in, is finding precedent for the intellectual property right of the number/ possible compensation claims, bearing in mind i bought it outright, with no ongoing rental fee.
If there is a techie out there who knows how to keep the number i'm all ears.
Thanks.
ps. forgot to mention, uk law applies.

Well, sorry I couldn't be of more help. What a pain.

What does your local representative say? This might be one of those things where the right word in a government person's ear could change things, at least get your number out of purgatory long enough for you to change carriers. I can't believe yours is the first and only company to have ever gone through this. Hmm.

Oh, and welcome to A2K.

When is a number not a number?
My carrier is quoting the following: "the priority line service we provide to our customers may be cancelled by us at any time by way of 30 days written notice, as with any of our services"
it seems a bit handy that they are classing my number as a service, when in fact it is a product i purchased outright and therefore assume ownership. They also state that 80% of priority line users have not used this service in the last 3 months, so it's going,(this was according to one call centre op).

As for my local representative, i'll be writing letters from down the plug hole for all the speed our government works at!

How 'bout the press? Here, local TV stations often have consumer affairs reporters, and they love this kind of stuff.

Hmmm, tv expo
Not a bad idea Jespah, we have a show called Watchdog here which i might try. At least if i got on it they could show my new number to their 5 million viewers and i'll be rich!!

Rather keep my number though!

Re: When is a number not a number?


I think this is a fairly common misconception but you do NOT own the number and never did. Claiming you own the number is a bit like claiming you own the waiter (or the dishes) because you paid for a dinner.

When you buy telephone service you buy the ability to make and receive calls and, in some cases, the hardware that you carry with you.

The numbers themselves don't belong to the telco to begin with so they don't have any legal authority to transfer ownership to the customer. The numbers are all "owned" by the regulating authority in each country and are ASSIGNED for use to the telcos. The telco can use the number in order to deliver service to customers but the state retains the authority to pull those numbers back.

If customers "owned" the actual numbers we'd be dialing 90 digits to make a phone call at this point and numbers would never get reused.

When you got your service you signed a contract for a service and were ASSIGNED a number. The contract is for the service itself - not the number.

Up the creek
Thanks Fishin'. Looks like i'm up the creek then! Doesn't the phone company have some sort of obligation to act reasonably and justly with the empowerment it has been issued? I can't imagine that these actions would be tolerated if BT tried to cancel the phone numbers of Barclays Bank!

lol Well I'd guess that Barclay's Bank is probably large enough that they have their own telephone exchange and their own telephone switches to take care of their own internal needs so they probbaly don't have to worry about it to much.

In most countries a 30 day notification that a service is being terminated is probably considered "reasonable". It's reasonable enough that it gives the user time to find a replacement service and get it functional before they are cut off.

Without knowing what is actually going on within BT it's hard to guess at what would be "just". If they are simply ending the priority number service I 'd think they'd allow you to to keep the same number with some other service that they offer. The purpose of putting a cancelled number into an unused bank is so that someone else doesn't get assigned your old nnumber the next day and then gets flooded with all of your calls. If people try to call your number within the 6 month banking period then they'd get a message telling them that the number is no longer in service. If you wanted to keep the number yourself then there is no reason to bank it at all. It's not like it would bother you to get calls intended for you....

For clarity: I used Bt and Barclays as generic examples.

i understand that 30 days is enough to reorganise things for outbound calls but it's the inbounds i'm worrried about. Directory adverts, past customers, etc. I can alter all van livery, stationery, web, albeit at a cost.
When London numbers changed from 0181 to 020 7/8 we had 18 months notice. 30 days? Surely not fair?
For interest i have been with this company for some 15 years and have never missed a bill and have way above average billing. Does loyalty count any more?