First, there was the phone. Until 2013, I was a landline-only person. I loved my phone number, so much so that when I moved from downtown, I called the phone company and told them, “I’m moving and I want to keep my phone number.” Thankfully, rules had relaxed and it came with me when Matt and I moved in together, and then followed us to the Orange Door.
In 2013, I bought my first cell phone*, skipping over all other incarnations and jumping in at the smartphone period. I was surprised at how much I liked it. So this was why everyone was always staring at them. One thing I didn’t like? My cell phone number. It started with 971, for one thing. Who wants that stupid area code? I didn’t actually want to talk on my cell phone, so I kept the landline, and my awesome phone number.
Just this year, I learned you can keep your landline number and have it ported to your cell phone company. I would not have to give up my beloved phone number! It happened that I was due for a new phone, so instead of upgrading and transferring my cell number to my new phone, I instead transferred my landline number to my new phone. It was easy!**
Now we are not paying the monthly bill for a landline AND I have my favorite phone number. All is well.
I realize that cool phone numbers are more-or-less moot. Once the number gets programmed into someone’s phone they never look at it again. But I know how cool my phone number is. It’s mathematically correct! So I’m happy.
*Note that this is not cell phone, version 1, it’s cell phone version 2.
**Porting the number was easy, dealing with the fallout from the landline people was not. We lost internet for a few days, which wasn’t fun, and turned out to have not been necessary.
I didn’t know a landline number could be transferred to a cell line! That’s awesome. So convenient. Well, except for the part where you didn’t have internet for a few days.
It’s one of the things I learned at my new job! Because we do polling, we have our pulse on the landline-to-cellphone transfers. But the first time someone said, “port their landlines” I was like, “Hold the phones! You can do that?!?!”
Historians will appreciate this post! Well done. 🙂
And I did, too!