TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Service Providers Recycling Phone Numbers

Re: Service Providers Recycling Phone Numbers

T (nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net)
Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:17:27 -0500

In article <telecom25.80.11@telecom-digest.org>, kludge@panix.com
says:

>> In a little-known industry practice, wireless service providers
>> routinely recycle former customers' phone numbers and give them to
>> new customers without informing them of the number's history.

> Little-known? This has been going on since long before I was born.
> When I was a kid, one of the neighbors got a number that had previously
> belonged to a defunct pizza parlor.

> I believe that it used to be standard practice for the telco to age
> out a number for about six months after disconnecting it, before
> assigning it to a new customer.

> So I have no idea why the author of the article thinks that things
> should be any different for cellphones than they have always been for
> landline phones. It's not as if there is an infinite supply of new
> phone numbers.

That's ok. Here's one that should get a chuckle.

We own 401-222-1234 and 1235. They're in a rotary hunt and are tied to
an 800 number for voter information.

People have been calling on 222-1234 complaining that they get hang up
calls at all hours of the day. I made sure both our PBX and the Verizon
line didn't allow outdial. The calls continued.

Obviously someone is spoofing the number. After all it's the lowest
possible exchange code around here, and the 1234 is just a natural. It's
gotten so bad that we had to change that initial number. I pity the
state agency that gets it next.

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