It's your number

Chicago Tribune: Cell phone customers have endured dropped calls and spotty service. They have put up with trying to compare incomprehensible pricing packages filled with buckets of anytime, weekend and first-Tuesday-of-the-month-between-3-and-3:06-a.m. minutes.
Many have done this because switching to another carrier, even one promising better prices and services, meant yet another hassle: changing phone numbers. That's about to change.
As of Nov. 24, wireless companies will have to let customers take their numbers with them when they leave. So ruled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a case that pitted the wireless companies against the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC first ordered cell phone companies to provide number portability by 1999. The FCC extended that deadline three times because the industry said it would cost too much and wasn't necessary to ensure competitiveness.
'Hogwash'
The U.S. Court of Appeals doesn't generally use terms like "hogwash." But that pretty much is how a unanimous three-judge panel responded to the cell phone industry's latest attempt to block implementation of the portability rule.
"The simple truth is that having to change phone numbers presents a barrier to switching carriers ... since consumers cannot compare and choose between various service plans and options as efficiently," the court stated. Consumers "find themselves forced to stay with carriers with whom they may be dissatisfied because the cost of giving up their wireless phone number ... to move to another carrier is too high."
Would that the companies had spent their money and time preparing for this day rather than fighting it at every turn.