Finding Local Vanity Numbers

Local numbers

Our whole website is mainly about finding vanity numbers, but more specifically it’s about finding TOLL FREE Vanity Numbers. Local vanity number availability varies BOTH by geography and phone company so there’s no nationwide system or standard rules them. Sometimes they only take a couple phone calls and come easy but often no matter what you do, they really won’t or can’t help you. Unfortunately there’s just nobody that can help you very much for local vanity numbers.

Local numbers are assigned very differently than toll free numbers. With toll free numbers there is a central database called the SMS/800 that administers toll free numbers and certain companies are qualified to get numbers from them (called Resporgs) and more importantly they all have to follow the same rules in one nationwide system.

Local numbers are assigned in blocks to phone companies. Then each phone company is responsible for administering and allocating those numbers. They also tend to only want to break up blocks one at a time. If they had 10 blocks and all 10 were being broken up it would be harder for them to administer. So they may be assigned certain blocks but they are probably only using a much smaller set of blocks. So a phone company may technically have a number you want in a block they control but the operators often don’t see that at all. That’s why it’s often helpful to keep checking back over time.

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    11 Comments »

    Jeff Kloth says:
    February 3, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    Hi Bill,

    I have 4 local vainity numbers but I am only really using 1 of them. They are all cell numbers. The problem I have is I don’t use 3 of them but still have to pay a monthly line fee ($15.00) with the cell company. So I am throwing away $45.00 a month. I would still like to keep the 3 numbers when I can use them more in the future. Do you know if I can port the numbers to a pay per use type plan? The kind of plan that you can add minutes when you run low. I would hardly ever run low because I rarly use the 3 numbers.

      Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
      February 3, 2008 at 6:23 pm

      You can probably transfer the numbers to land lines if you want. Some voip services are just a couple bucks a month.

      .Bill Quimby.

        Jon Lemoine says:
        February 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm

        Hello again guys…

        I was wondering if you know of a site that shows local (Rhode Island for me) telephone number availability or if there is a way to check for any available RI numbers?? What I am trying to find out is if there is a way to obtain a number that may become available soon from a business that is closing?

        Thanks for your help.
        Jon Lemoine

        *** Moved from another post to a more relevant post.

          Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
          February 15, 2008 at 12:36 am

          You would have to call your local phone company. The incumbent phone company for the area should or might? be able to help you. Here’s a great tool to find the local phone company for a local number: http://www.fonefinder.net/

          Theres no other serice or any website that will do it for you or be much help that I’ve ever seen. If anyone has any suggestions please post them here.

            Steve Schultz says:
            June 11, 2009 at 11:47 am

            We are in the process of moving our office to a different part of the state, 80 miles away. We receive about 200 faxes a day on a local number provided by the local carrier (ETC with a 706 area code). We have tried to move that number to Ringcentral so that it could come with us and we would receive the faxes through email. Strangely, both ETC and RingCentral say “we don’t have relationships? with the other party, so we can’t move the number.

            Do you have any recommendations on how to keep the local fax number when we move so that we can continue to receive faxes? We pay dental claims, so notifying the 25,000 people who use the fax number to use a new fax number is difficult. We have a new fax at the new office in a different exchange (770), but need to transition out the old number over a period of maybe a year.

            I appreciate any advice you can provide.

            Steve

              Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
              June 11, 2009 at 2:28 pm

              Steve,

              Ask RC if they have a relationship with the biggest local phone company in your area. Most companies don’t have relationships with all of the other smaller companies but they all have a relationship with the central main phone company for that area. So you may have to transfer it to them and then transfer it to the company you want it with. I hope that helps.

              Bill

                Dennis McDonald says:
                October 26, 2010 at 1:44 pm

                Bill,

                I want Sprint to give me 949-288-6362 (which would be the same as my 855 number) buy they don’t seem interested in obtaining that number for me. They danced around and finally said that they only get numbers that I had in the past and/or are still active. I spoke to you about this last week.

                The number is owned by XO Communications. That number is not currently in service and they said that they would give it up but I would have to have my carrier contact them.

                Could you please help? Could you contact them and activate that number for me for 30 days? I would pay you whatever you say is fair. I really need this number!

                Dennis McDonald

                  Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
                  October 26, 2010 at 5:33 pm

                  Dennis,

                  I’m not a Local Exchange Carrier and can’t help you with local numbers like this, especially when you define your target so narrowly. The only one who can help you if you want just one specific number is the company or customer that has that number.

                  Bill Quimby

                    sean (1 comments.) says:
                    January 31, 2011 at 11:52 pm

                    Hi Bill,

                    Am looking to purchase a local telephone number for Sprint to use on my cell phone in San Diego CA… the area code has to be 858 but was looking for something like:
                    xxx-4900 5900 2000 2100 0400 and so on as example…. Do you have any ideas? Please contact me at your earliest convience. Thanks… Sprint won’t help me.

                    Sean

                      Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
                      February 1, 2011 at 2:39 am

                      Sean,

                      You can use our Local Vanity Number site, http://www.VanityNumbers.com but unfortunately it doesn’t find that type of number very readily. There’s just no shortcut for local numbers. The thing I say most of the time is to just call your local phone company. Then they reply that they are just so unhelpful, and I have to agree. But they control ttr local numbers.

                        Ralph Denisco(new comment) says:
                        November 13, 2011 at 1:11 pm

                        It is not clear to me how youi help find a local vanity number

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