Installing Gigapower will force me to lose my 45 year old phone nmber

Considering how easy it is to port nuymbers to other providers, thats actuallyt an excellent question.

Definatly falls into the realm of don't want to, rather than, can't.

@jkight

Are you sure about that? Something doesn't seem right. Are you a legacy(POTS) phone service user or do you currently have U-verse voice? We were able to keep our phone number when upgrading from POTS to U-verse voice.

I would contact the AT&T Customer Care team to see if they can assist you with your phone number concerns.

They can be contacted by clicking the link below(expect a response over the next few days):

https://forums.att.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage/tab/compose/note-to-user-id/192773

In the message body, please include the following:

- Name

- Address

- Account Number

- Phone number

- Contact email address

- The best time to contact you if needed

- The problem you are having (in detail)

Below is an image describing where to enter information within your message:

Yes, I have Uverse now - with phone, internet and TV. I have had this phone number since 1970 with the Bell system (Southern Bell, etc, etc) and for two years with ATT Uverse.

Tried to send to attcustomercare as you suggested around 40 times and it won't take a message from me.

@jkight

What if you try contacting them by clicking the "Message" button on their page?

https://forums.att.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/192773

You may want to try another browser.

From what I've been hearing, certain users have been having issues with the message function while others are having none.

If you continue to have issues with the message function, you can try emailing them instead(not sure if the email still works) at attcustomercare@att.com  or sending them a message over at their twitter page of @ATTCares https://twitter.com/attcares . You might want to try the Twitter option. I was also just told you can also try sending them a message through Facebook(if you don't have a Twitter account) by going to https://www.facebook.com/ATT .

@ATTHelpForums

@Darknessrise to be fair to the op, I have seen a few posts to the effect that other folks were upset due to the inability to keep their origional phone numnber when they switch over to the gigapower connection.

And with more places looking like they are potential markets for the giga upgrade, well, more folks will be airing their complaints as well.

I personally don't find a simple phone number chage to be all that big of a deal, but then, i don't call that many folks, so not an issue for me. But, i can see how it would be for others.

Anywho, good luck.

Oh dear. The intent of my post was to emphasize that for many, it IS a big problem, not seemingly minimize it, and apologies if I gave that mis-impression.

And also, I am at a loss as to how, when so many companies are porting numbers all the time, why ATT can't port a number that they already outright own.

I got the impression that one of the other posters thought you might have misunderstood the situation,a nd asking if you were sure about the not porting part, and I meant to point out, I'd seen others post the same experiance in other threads.

My folks have had their number over 20 years, so i understand how it's important to keep it constant.

Gotta remember to keep "me" out of these thengs. sorry.

@Tigereyze209

If ATTCustomerCare can't help out with the port request(I don't see what the real problem is though, unless they somehow have to rebuild the account), then there's the option to port the number over to some kind of temporary phone or something and then try to port it back after the install. I would've thought that gigapower installs(for existing U-verse customers) would just be a simple tier upgrade, guess there's more behind the scenes in how it's in the system. I have seen people who were having porting issues in the past and were able to get them resolved through people above the regular AT&T support.

His/her best bet would be to try to use whatever contact method that works to get in touch with ATTCustomerCare to see if they can do anything for him/her.

I find it silly that Gigapower upgrades of all things would be a main cause of porting issues. Guess if you're already seeing a few people mention it, then it's going to start becoming more common as Gigapower is available in more areas.

I finally got through to Gigapower support and they confirmed that my number (which is an ATT landline number) cannot be ported to gigapower.  Not entirely sure why, but has something to do with the new equipment they are using for Gigapower.

Guess I will just wait for Google Fiber to get here.

At age 72, I just don't want to try to update several hundred contacts plus kids, grandkids, great grandkids, etc, etc

In October when I called again to see if ATT could port my number to Gigapower, they said "Of course we can - who told you we couldn't?".  So I have had Gigapower since October 14th, but the cable that trails down the street in front of 5 house and crosses the street in front of my house (all of our utilities are underground in the neighborhood) is still laying there. It has been cut twice by cars and trucks and had to be replaced.  8-9 ATT people have been out here over the last 3 months and it is still not buried.  Each one says "Oh, that should have been buried a long time ago".  Ya think? The last guy came out with a digger but said that he didn't have the right equipment to dig under the street.