In My Experience... | I want a HipTop or a Treo, but... (2225)

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I want a HipTop or a Treo, but...
[ Posted by Dan on December 10, 2002 | 5 Comments ]

My phone number is the killer feature of my phone. I've had the same mobile number for about 5 years, and I'm not letting go. The phone companies know that your phone number is a valuable asset as well and "wireless carriers are not required to provide telephone number portability at this time." This is a competitive advantage leveraged by one of the most basic usability rules that familiarity makes things easier. Changing your number doesn't breed familiarity, and prevents me from adopting competitive technologies.

And don't let the wireless carriers fool you, number portability between GSM and CDMA networks has been available in Australia since 25 September 2001.

Well, I bought a HipTop (Sidekick) a few months ago and opted to keep paying for (and using) my Sprint PCS service for a few reasons:

1. The phone number, as you said, had it for about 6 years now.
2. My Sanyo SCP-6200 is a hella cool phone.
3. My SideKick is a hella cool device, but a sub-par phone.

As if to validate my decision, shortly after getting the SideKick, I received a call from an employer of 5 years ago seeing if I was available for a substantial amount of freelance work. Considering I've moved several times and had several jobs since then, I wonder if they would have been able to get in touch with me had that number been out of service...

-Posted by Eric on December 11, 2002 03:22 PM

A perfect example.

-Posted by Dan on December 11, 2002 03:32 PM

Wired notes the changes coming in years time where you'll be able to take your phone number with you when you change providers...

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56675,00.html

-Posted by Dan on January 2, 2003 07:52 PM

ANYone know how to change a sprint pcs phone number for
a phone. Just got two wife and I and we want similar numbers
one being say +1 from the other. Help! the cs person
said I could do it on line.

hmmmm.... cant find it though!

-Posted by timothy on March 27, 2003 12:48 AM

i want get to know my lock code on my sprint pcs phone

-Posted by thomas shull on August 8, 2003 02:28 PM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).