Take Control and Choose Your Phone Number
Phone numbers and names are similar in that they’re typically assigned to you by someone else without giving you much say in the matter, whether it’s your parents or the phone company. While people generally know that it’s possible to change your name, did you know it’s also possible to change your number?
Can you pick your phone number?
The short answer is: yes! Within limits.
When buying a new plan from a carrier, particularly doing so in person in a store, you might have a choice from a random selection of the network’s available numbers in your local rate center, but you’ll never be able to search for anything specific. (What’s a rate center? We’ll get to that.)
However, since 2003, FCC regulations have given consumers the right to freely take their phone numbers from one carrier to another, even between wireless, wireline, or VOIP services. This has also opened up the space for secondary marketplaces, such as NumberBarn, allowing people to buy, sell, and license numbers, even searching by particular parameters such as spelling something or including a favorite number.
While you cannot necessarily pick any number you want, and how much it costs will depend on the whims of the marketplace (certain words or simple and easy-to-remember patterns hold higher value to many businesses), you can absolutely decide to take matters into your own hands. You don’t have to passively accept whatever random sequence the carrier assigned you. You can easily choose your own custom phone number.
How to find your ideal phone number
Finding the perfect phone number is as easy as using any search engine, like Google or Safari. NumberBarn’s marketplace has over 48 million available numbers across local area codes in the US, Canada, and UK, as well as toll-free numbers.
Type in whatever parameters you want in NumberBarn’s search bar, using * to fill in spots where it could be anything. For instance, if you want a phone number that spells “HOME” in the last four digits, but don’t care about the first several digits, you can just enter ***HOME in the search bar. You’ll receive hundreds of options from across the U.S., and also a larger variety of price points.
You can search by both numbers or letters, if you want a number that spells something fun or memorable. Costs start as low as $5, ranging up into the thousands or even tens of thousands for particularly valuable numbers. Very easy to remember repeating sequences cost more than $10,000, while terms from particular industries like legal or financial services might cost $5,000, or more. Some numbers are also open to negotiation, so maybe you’ll get lucky with a lower offer.
For a measly $5, however, (760) GOBLINS could be yours, which is a steal of a deal likely to get snatched fast.
Note that before you pull the trigger on buying your perfect new number, you should be sure to check that your service provider of choice can support its rate center. To give a brief explanation, rate centers refer to the area code plus first 3 digits of the phone number and associate a number with a particular geographic region within the larger zone covered by the area code.
While most carriers can accept most numbers, every once in a specific number might be part of a rate center that doesn’t fall under their domain, particularly if it started as a wireline/landline number. Most carriers let you check portability prior to accepting a port, so if you’re planning to purchase and port a number to a carrier, it’s always crucial to check with them first. Here’s some fast links to check portability with several major carriers, like T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.
How do you use your new phone number once you’ve bought it?
Once you’ve found your ideal number, negotiated a price that works for you, and bought it, how do you get it out of NumberBarn and into your preferred carrier’s system?
It’s very easy! This is where those FCC regulations mentioned above come into play, ensuring that carriers make it easy for you to take your number with you wherever you go.
In the process of purchasing a number at NumberBarn, you will create a new account if you do not already have one. If you are just going to port the number out to whatever carrier you prefer to use, you can select the free Port Away plan, which gives you 30 days at no additional cost to take your number and run. If you want to sit on it longer for whatever reason, Parking plans cost just $2.99 per month for each number.
You can also opt to keep it at NumberBarn and use call forwarding starting at $6.99 per month, and have all calls to your new number forward to your old number, without needing to get rid of your old number and update all your contacts.
If you want to fully replace your old number with your new while keeping your provider, then it’s also easy to port it out. All of the information that your carrier needs is conveniently available in your NumberBarn account once you’ve purchased a number, which you can copy over to your service provider’s porting-in interface.
The process typically takes from 3 to 7 business days, or up to 10 days on rare occasions. While porting numbers from wireless carrier to wireless carrier can just take a few hours, NumberBarn’s numbers are classified as wireline, which can take longer to transfer.
And that’s that! Once the transfer completes, your new, perfect phone number will be ready to use with whatever carrier you want. Never again let yourself be ruled by the tyranny of assigned phone numbers. Assert yourself as the kind of person you want to be in the world by choosing your own phone number.
