have you had many cell#'s in your lifetime?

one from 1994 to 2002 Australia
one from 2002 to 2022 Canada

because we moved countries

I've only had one number. Started as a work number with AT&T which at the time did not work well on the East Coast. The company shifted us to Verizon and when I retired I was allowed to keep the same number for a personal use phone. For a few years I continued to get customer calls but not now.

The original one from 1992, (car phone), until 2015 when we went to two lines. My wife kept the original phone number and I got the new one.

I have honestly lost count, but of the ones I can specifically remember I come up with 11 (counting for both my wife and I). I think I am probably forgetting at least 2 or 3 more.

My first cell phone was company issued when I was still working. All the others were purchased personally ... first couple were prepaid US Cellular plans, the rest have been Tracfone or Tracfone BYOP (bring your own phone), all prepaid plans. I have never subscribed to a monthly cell phone plan.

I also am one of the few hold outs for keeping a landline (Mediacom digital cable phone). I have had the same phone number since 1972 ... going all the way back to US West (remember them prior to the AT&T breakup?)! Back then, US West actually owned the "harvest gold" rotary dial phone appliance hanging on our kitchen wall and you had to pay long distance charge for any number you dialed outside your local calling area. They also charged you extra every month for that new fancy "touch tone" service!

One was short-term, on a pre-paid Motorola flip phone that was the size of a red brick, and weighed almost as much. Changed to a Nextel in early 2001. I have ported that number three times since through three different carriers to present-day. I've never believed in constantly changing phone numbers, but several people I know change theirs regularly.

I had my landline number for 25 years, but when I changed telephone service to Comcast, they lost my number, and the number they assigned me was previously used by a drug dealer (constant calls at all hours of the day and night), so I switched the landline over to a Magicjack with a new number, and have maintained that ever since.

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it's the dog's fault

I've used google voice as my primary number since late 2009. Since then I've probably had 6 or 7 different forwarding numbers. I really don't keep track of them as they are irrelevant. At the moment the forwarding number is with cricket. I'm on a group plan which includes unlimited data and calling - all for $10/month.

For the landline, we ported the over to google voice too, using an obi device. E911, spam filtering and voice mail is through a company called callcentric. Monthly bill for 2 inbound numbers is $4/month. Supposedly google voice will be making major changes a year from now so we'll see.

In my earlier post, I referenced the US West phone company. Thinking back now, I realize it was actually Northwestern Bell back in 1972 before the breakup of AT&T which owned the regional Bell phone companies. It was pretty much a monopoly back then. US West came about as a consequence of the AT&T breakup, then eventually became Qwest, and now Century Link.

One. Since 1988 or thereabouts

My wife and I have had the same number since June 23, 1973, the day we moved into the very house we still live in. As alanb said, that was in the days of the AT&T breakup into what was called the Baby Bells. Our telephone company was Ohio Bell which lasted until...I don't remember. Our local calling area was about a mile in every direction. After that everything was a toll call. Talk about a walk down memory lane.

Phil

I've had the same landline # for 52 years (1970-2022) and the same cell# for 23 (1999-2022).

Well, I guess it's really two if you count my wife's cell #.

The one and only cell number was for a company phone I had for 25 years. When I left the company I was able to keep the number. Saved me a lot of effort and work since I had many two factor authentication messages sent to that phone number.
Mark

Yup ... I had forgotten about the "Baby Bell" nickname given to the AT&T regional subsidiaries. It's interesting how what was normal life in my younger years seems like it was just yesterday, but it is now ancient history.

I've had the same phone number since I relocated to the metro Atlanta area in 1978. At the time it was my wired home phone number. After a time, probably sometime in the 90s, I had my home phone ported over to a cell phone that I still use today with the original number from 1978. Somewhere in between my phone area code changed but my phone number has remained the same.

In between, before I retired, I had a couple of cell phones with different numbers that I used for work and were paid for by the company I worked for in sales. When I retired I returned my cell phone to my company.

I've got 6 right now between 2 phones.

Each phone has 2 sim slots and a virtual # for each!

For the last 24 years.

Since 1983

I still have a landline, but the number actually changed once since we got it here in Albuquerque in 1988. The company did it to us without providing a meaningful explanation.

I was late getting a first cell phone in 2009. My motivation was that I was traveling to Maryland to handle my mother's estate and figured I needed a way to get in touch with the lawyer and the appraiser by some means other than the hotel phone or phone booth (remember those?). The number for that first cell phone still exists but it is now on my wife's phone, and I've had two more for my personal cell phones.

jogged my memory....I had come across a touch tone phone that was really heavy with a metal bottom and a mechanical ringer I think, that said, property of PA Bell...and I don't know what happened to it. I had wanted to keep it as a relic, back in the day when people rented phones. Imagine, in 2022, we can't "not" rent a cable set top box!!! Maybe someday someone will find one and say man 50 years ago people rented these things...

How many? Just the one cellphone number I first got way back even before flip-phone days. I even kept it when I moved out-of-state. Having an out-of-state number helps me recognize telemarketing calls, which usually use an old-state area code, although now that my phone is set to only ring calls from callers in my contact list, that's less important.