I am somewhat surprised that I have not heard more about this issue here.
It seems to me to be a upcoming problem.  Here is the downside of number
portability.

Does anyone know if sprint is going to do the right thing like Verizon, or
are they going to sell our numbers and names to telemarketers?

I don't know about the rest of you but when telemarketers start to use up MY
minutes I am going to go ballistic.

Later

Jeff

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4795543.html

Last update: May 25, 2004 at 8:38 PM
Los Angeles Times: Directory of private cell-phone numbers will irk millions
May 26, 2004LATIMES0526
From an editorial in the Los Angeles Times:

There's wonderful news on the cell-phone front for telemarketers, spammers,
used-car salesmen and real estate agents.

Within months, an association of cellular and Internet communicators will be
selling a nationwide directory of private cell-phone numbers. Super news for
those feeling slighted and unrecognized in an impersonal world because they
weren't receiving their fair share of unsolicited telephone calls. Now you
can have such wireless encounters in meetings, movies, cars, restaurants,
bed.

Also, people need waste no more time deciding who gets cell access to them
and their monthly minutes. Everyone on the planet with 99 cents will be able
to find you anytime, anywhere. And you can pay for it.

Wait one darned message unit!

This is thoroughly dumb for consumers. Great for sellers of mass access, who
could gain an estimated $3 billion in fees and sold minutes by 2009. Also
great for telemarketers, who fear that millions more customers will go
totally wireless by canceling listed home phones.

But double-list this cell directory idea under S for stupid and U for
unnecessary. Praise be to Verizon Wireless, which vows not to dump its 39
million numbers into the database. That leaves 121 million of us.

This is an unintended consequence of allowing cell customers to transfer old
numbers to new service providers. When 30 million customers changed numbers
annually, there was no point to compiling a list.

Directory boosters, some no doubt with unlisted home phones, claim that
users will be able to opt in or out of a cell directory. Sounds super.

True, anyone can still use the federal Do Not Call Registry --
www.donotcall.gov -- which applies to "most telemarketers."

Key word here: most. Have you stopped getting unwanted e-mails or phone
calls? Would you like dozens of unsolicited, untraceable text messages or
pictures a day on your cell? Why pay next year for something you don't have
today and still don't want?

This is a privacy matter. The IRS could make millions selling information on
family incomes. It can't legally. You want to release your income, fine. You
needn't opt into privacy; it's there automatically, and free.

Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., seeks hearings on a law to bar listing or
nonlisting fees and force directories to get permission for each number. If
that's too expensive, good.

But publishing private info is also a control issue.

We're unable in modern America to opt out of or into so many things --
traffic jams, smog, pay raises, rent increases, rude passersby, tasteless
ads for beer and enhancements. We have few quiet refuges left. Two of them
are a private cell where we control the number and a shower where we control
the water.

Now, half of that's threatened.