Phone Number Portability

Under the Federal Communications Commission’s “local number portability” (LNP) rules you can switch telephone service providers, including interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, and keep your existing phone number. This switching can be from a wireless, wireline, or VoIP provider to any other wireless, wireline or VoIP provider and still keep their existing phone numbers.

This refers to the ability of a “customer of record” of an existing fixed-line or mobile telephone number assigned by one local exchange carrier (LEC) to have the same number reassigned by or to another carrier (“Service Provider Portability”), move it to another location (“Geographic Portability”), or change the type of service (“Service Portability”).