One of my kids recently had a “coming of age” birthday, and with it, my wife and I felt it was time that he had a phone. You know – so we could more easily communicate with him, track his whereabouts and enable him to spend his time at school not paying attention to his teachers.
OK, everything but that last part.
But seriously, what’s the deal with skibidi toilet and rizz and what happens when you add alpha and sigma in front of those words? And where does Ohio fit into all of this? I guess the fact that I don’t understand what my teenager is talking about means that I’m coming of age as well. I’m very sorry for the rant. Google at your own risk if this paragraph doesn’t make any sense to you.
Getting back on track, we got my son a phone and naturally, I wasn’t going to settle for the random telephone number the wireless carrier wanted to assign me. Not when I work for the world’s largest telephone number marketplace. In sharp contrast, my wireless provider only had a few number options to choose from.
Finding and securing a great number
I headed over to the NumberBarn marketplace where I found more than a thousand numbers to choose from in our preferred area code. I narrowed down the search a bit by typing his 3-letter nickname in the search box and found dozens of telephone numbers that end with his name. With a range of price options to fit my budget, I was able to find the perfect combination of price, location, and memorability.
Before I purchased the number, I moseyed on over to my preferred wireless carrier to make sure that I could easily port the number in. When the answer came back affirmative I placed my order and waited to receive a confirmation email from NumberBarn. I purchased a number labeled “Get it now” so it was active in a couple of hours.
The porting process
Once active, I logged in to my NumberBarn account and accessed the important information to port my number away, including the account number and PIN.
As a bonus, NumberBarn has helpful guides for porting to all of the major carriers that even include contact information to reach the right people and departments at those carriers for assistance with porting. The NumberBarn support team spends all day, every day navigating the varying waters of number porting and works to provide the most up-to-date wisdom so your port won’t take any longer than it has to.
Next, I went to the wireless store to purchase my son’s phone and took my NumberBarn porting information with me. The employee at the wireless store was able to initiate the porting request right then and there. While I understood that NumberBarn’s numbers are classified as wireline or landline and porting could take a bit longer than wireless to wireless porting, I was curious to see how long it would take.
Once the port was submitted by the carrier, I received an email from NumberBarn stating that a port request had been received and approved and they were preparing to port my number out. To my surprise, my wireless carrier completed the port in less than an hour – and again, I received a notification from NumberBarn that porting was complete and the number was no longer in my account. Win!
Other ways to gift a phone number
Great news! While I already planned to purchase a phone for my son, the gift of a personalized phone number doesn’t have to involve buying a device, or even porting the new phone number. And it is definitely not limited to birthdays! There are too many reasons to count for gifting a phone number to the important people in your life and it’s so easy.
You can simply search for that perfect phone number, perhaps with your best friend’s nickname or the name of their new startup company, and check out. Select the Park plan and then surprise your friend with their own personalized phone number.
Once the order is complete in your NumberBarn account, click on the number and go to “Options.” There you will see a link for “Ownership Transfer. From there, just enter the name and email address of the lucky recipient and NumberBarn will send them a link to create their account. There’s a small fee of $3 for the ownership transfer that you can elect to pay, and that’s it.
Receiving the number is easy-peasy
Receiving and activating the phone number is simple. On the recipient’s end, they will be prompted to create their account, entering contact and billing information. Since NumberBarn doesn’t require any contracts or commitments, the recipient can start with the Park plan and decide if they’d like to keep their new number and how they’d like to use it. Options include parking the number until they’re ready to use it, adding advanced functionality like call forwarding and texting or porting the phone number away to another service provider.
When you initiate the ownership change, the number will not be removed from your account until the transfer has been accepted by the recipient. Once accepted, it is removed from your account and the recipient assumes responsibility for the monthly billing. The number will default to the Park plan which includes text messaging and a customizable message for callers to hear and costs only $2 a month, while more robust plans start at just $6 a month. So, it’s likely your recipient will continue to keep and utilize their number!
(Pro tip: If you want to add to your gift, you can always contact our support team and ask them to guide you through adding a credit into your recipient’s new NumberBarn phone number account before you transfer it.)
Voila, you’ve just gifted your friend the novelty of a fun and unique custom phone number!
A mostly happy birthday
Fast forward to my son’s birthday. He was thrilled to receive his new phone – especially since he’d been requesting one for years at that point. But the icing on the cake for this experience was when we said “And we got you a telephone number that spells your name!” Icing on the cake might be a bit strong, but I was excited about his new number.
I just checked in with him to see if he tells his friends that his number spells his name when they exchange phone numbers. Expecting an affirmative response, I received a series of grunts instead and he said something like “Dad, you’re not a skibidi sigma with alpha rizz from Ohio.” Perhaps Dad thinks the vanity number is cooler than son does and that’s OK.
Somehow I think this gift will get better with age. Fatherhood has definitely taught me to be grateful for many of the well-intentioned things my parents did for me as I was growing up – things I completely overlooked in the moment.
I’m mostly talking about those big life lessons here, but also PHONE NUMBERS! And why not? This phone number may very well outlast my time here on Earth. So I guess the moral of the story here is to give your kids the gift of a cool, vanity telephone number today and they very well may thank you for it when they’re your age!
