Expert: DebiN - 8/11/2009

Question
Hello - I have had some major drama recently trying to port over a number from US Cellular to Sprint. Long Story short...I created an account with 4-lines (2 couples) 3 of the 4 lines ported over just fine...on the 4th line, Sprint said that they can not port it over, because the original number (10-yrs old) did not originate in a Sprint area, and governmental regulations say they can not port it over.  After much discussion Sprint just gave us a "new #" and sent us on our way.  The person with Line #4 had a tough time "losing her number," so we tried to call customer service ourselves to try get this ironed out.  Well in talking to customer service they said that they can port the number over from US Cellular to a Nextel phone, but not a Sprint phone....which we did not understand since Sprint & Nextel are the same company.  Do you ahve any suggestions as to what we can do to try resolve this issue.  Thanks a lot for your time.

>Andy

Answer
Though today, Sprint and Nextel are the same company, they did not start out that way. Sprint bought Nextel several years ago. The regulatory reasons why the number can be ported to Nextel are legitimate so if you don't mind porting the number to Nextel, then go for it. It won't be able to be on the same family plan as the other numbers, but you can probably still take advantage of mobile to mobile and other benefits of moving to the Sprint/Nextel family. Honestly, there isn't a way to override this issue, but I think that you might benefit from porting to Nextel if you really to be able to keep the number. I'm glad someone was able to find this out for you because it is a lot better than losing the number, that's for sure. I hope this helps. Thanks. DebiN