Local Number Portability means moving your telephone number from one carrier to another. The FCC passed laws requiring carriers to let you "port out" your number to a new carrier. Hooray! Customers win!
My contract expires on March 4th, and I'm looking to move from AT&T to Helio.
However, after five calls this morning (three to AT&T, two Helio), I have determined:
1) If I cancel my AT&T contract early, I incur a $175 Early Termination Fee (ETF).
2) If I request that AT&T port my number to Helio, I incur the $175 ETF.
3) AT&T will not let me "buy out" the remainder of my contract (which is much less than $175).
4) If I wait until my AT&T contract expires, the number is immediately released and I can't port it out. It just vanishes into the aether.
So either I port my number out "early" and pay the ETF, or I let my contract expire and I lose the number. There's no way to
A) move from one carrier to another
B) without service interruption
C) while keeping your current number.
No wonder the telecoms all agreed to this legislation!
