Akili Li wrote:... okay, old style numbers are associated with addresses, right? New ones are associated with the physical phone? But... your name, instead? So... wait. How does that work. I'm so confused!
Mobile phone numbers are not really associated with the physical phone, but rather with the sim card, which is a little piece of plastic (with a chip) that you get from your mobile phone provider. You put that little card into your phone to allow it to work with your number. That way you can easily keep your number when you switch phones, as long as you don't also switch the provider (as River did) - you just put the little card into the new phone and everything should just work with your old number on the new phone, no hassle.
Now when you switch the provider, taking your number with you is a bit more complicated, as people already explained, basically because you get a new sim card that you want to have the old number. For that the old provider needs to sort of give the number up to the new one, since only one company should give out each number. You don't want some other person with another provider to have the same phone number as you, after all!
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