And yet, you can indeed take your number with you when you change cell phone providers. You can convert a fixed base land line to a cell phone number, and then take it anywhere you want to, and to any cell phone provider. You can't convert a cell phone number to land line. Yet. On 3 Aug 2007 23:42:29 -0000, John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > >I don't see whay you can't sell your phone number. > > You can sell your 800/888/877/866 number, but not your POTS number. > > Toll free numbers are more like domain names, in that you have to find > a provider to host it and to put an entry into the DNS-like database > that phone switches consult to decide how to route the call. Ordinary > phone numbers are more like IP addresses in that the first part of the > number is used to route calls (give or take some portability details > that don't really affect this argument.) Your phone company owns your > phone number. > > >If you have a good number (lucky digits, etc.) I bet you could sell > >it off. > > If it's a toll free number, sure, there's a robust market. If it's a > POTS number, forget it. > > This isn't exactly analogous to IP addresses, but the routing > nightmares that would result if every phone number were separately > portable is similar to what would happen if people started taking > their /28's with them. > > R's, > John > > > -- Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin Principal Engineer Corporate Standardization (US) SISA _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf