2 ms·

does a phone carrier not retain the right to revoke your number? likewise, don't phone numbers get reused?

• lukeschlather 16y ago
  If you transfer carriers they're actually required to let you take your number with you, at least in the US. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/NumberPortability/ http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/NumberPortability/ Now you are paying for the service and if you stop paying for service it can go to anyone, but that's not the carrier's decision. Telephone numbers are federally regulated. The Wikipedia article on telephone numbers also suggests that the bureaucracy managing them tries to avoid reassigning disconnected numbers if those numbers are still receiving regular calls. And this makes sense, since people receiving messages intended for someone else is bad for operators, and bad for the users. As others have noted, there may even be regulations [1] that apply here, though Twitter seems pretty safe from a legal perspective, even if ethically they're in the wrong. [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002511----000-.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002511----...