Last June my husband and I came to the conclusion that we were crazy to be paying $40 a month for regular (landline) telephone service when we hardly ever use it because we have come to rely so heavily on our cell phones. To the twenty-somethings, this is no big deal. But to those of us in the older generation, getting rid of the telephone service that we have had all our lives is a major move.

Also, we have had the same landline telephone number for more than 15 years. What if some old friend wants to reach us? We didn't want to give up our number.
Luckily we didn't have to. You can now keep your landline number and move it to a cell phone - it's called "porting" the number over. Unfortunately, the process was not as smooth as it should be.

First we made the arrangements with AT&T, our cell phone carrier. According to the AT&T agent, she would handle everything and within a few hours, the number would be moved to our cell phone. Ah! If only it were so. Several days later when it became apparent that the move was not made, I called AT&T again and I was told that the request had not been entered or at least had not been entered properly. I went through the entire scenario again. This time I was told that the move would take "a few" days.

Wanting to be sure that everything was handled properly the second time, I went over to the AT&T store. At the store they said everything had been done correctly and the number would be working properly within a few hours. No such luck!!

We went away for the weekend assuming that the number would be ported over while we were gone. We came back to a message from AT&T saying the completion of the porting would not happen until July 10th - a full two weeks after we made the initial request. The porting of the line was actually completed on July 12th.

At the time that this happened, AT&T said that Embarq (our local carrier) was sitting on the number for as long as they could... of course, the longer they keep the number the longer they can charge us for it! Embarq says this was not true and that AT&T was at fault. I thought they were both at fault. Embarq certainly could have released the number sooner. Why should it take so long? It is also apparent that no one at AT&T knew how this worked or how long it should take. I got contradictory information from each of the 4 agents I talked to at AT&T.
Last month, we decided to go even more mobile by moving our office number to a mobile phone. I felt a little smarter about the process, but knew that I would again be at the mercy of the two telephone companies involved. This time we were porting a number from Deltacom to AT&T. We went through the same process again, but this time the folks at AT&T had a little more experience in this entire porting matter. They immediately told me it could take a few weeks and they started the process correctly.

This time, the main problem was with Deltacom. After several weeks of calling to check on their progress I found that they had ported over the wrong number. It was back to the drawing board. We had to start the process all over again. After 12 days of "processing" AT&T told me that Deltacom said it was still in process. Luckily I got a wonderful AT&T rep on the phone. She called Deltacom let me stay on the line while she dealt with them. She was transferred to different people at Deltacom at least 10 times, but she persisted in getting this done. She and I were on the phone with Deltacom for three hours. Yes, an unbelievable three hours.... Yet, in the end that AT&T person got it done. Within 24 hours, the number was transferred.

I got the number transferred, but Deltacom got me to pay for an extra month of service since I had to keep the number in service until it was transferred. After dealing with Deltacom, I'm not sure this was an intentional plan to get me to pay extra fees. It seemed to be that they just didn't know what they were doing.

Hopefully all of these companies will get better at handling porting requests, but my experiences tell me that if you want to move your telephone number to another telephone carrier, you can expect some problems.

Yet, for me, moving the phone numbers was worth the hassle. I still have the same numbers, so everyone can reach me. I am now saving big bucks over having several landlines as well as cell phone service. I am thrilled with the fact that I can take my home phone with me when I am expecting a call and need to run to the store or when I travel. I can easily answer the office phone on the weekend, even if I am not in the office.

Yet, going all cellular does have its drawbacks. After only a few months, I am tired of running though the house to grab the cell phone that is ringing in another room. So I am now looking at devices that hook a cell phone to several wireless phones that you can have throughout the home. I am also looking at different charging options and routines. But that is the topic of another article. So stay tuned.