Same mobile number for x years

[OzEire]

1997 here, still have the same number which has been through about 7 handsets and 5 carriers (mostly they were acquired by bigger fish until I was with Optus - which didn't last long). I kept the original SIM (the 'big' one) until it no longer fit into a modern smartphone, was a pretty good innings about 13 years!

 

[kpc]

1998 when I could choose the number

 

[Bindibuys]

At my former employer some go-getter in IT shopped around for a better plan for our mobiles - we had a huge team of field reps - and claimed to have saved $50K by switching from Telstra to Optus. What this genius failed to realise is half our sales team were rural based so hardly had any coverage which made them very unhappy. What was much worse than this was that it was in the days when switching carriers meant switching numbers. Imagine changing the business cards and contact details for the entire team. We had their numbers on our brochures as well. Six months later we switched back and everything had to change again. I'd hate to guess how much that cost.

The genius who did it got promoted before the fallout occurred and then wisely found himself another job.

Just went thru this with my husbands work. (though did not have to change numbers) The genius that sits at North Sydney has NO idea about coverage where the team works.
Optus just does NOT have the coverage/signal strength that Telstra has.
I had one very frustrated husband for about 3 months (could not even use the phone/computer hook-up here at home) until they switched him back to Telstra.

 

[equus]

I have had the same 0412 number since the start of GSM , and that was an Optus issued number for new digital connections. Mid 1993 so over 22 years now.