Mobile phone number listed as a landline?

[jado]

I got a new iPhone SE for Christmas (My first and most likely last iPhone), and basically my number is listed as a landline. This was brought to my attention by steam when i tried to set up my authenticator and it wouldnt work. Does anyone know why its listed as a landline? 

 

(Sorry i didn't really know where to put this topic.)

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, jado said:

Does anyone know why its listed as a landline?

Yes. Your phone company.

 

Though in all honesty, there's nothing anyone is going to be able to do to help you here. You should contact your phone company and try talking to them. I would guess that the issue is that the last person that "owned" your number, had it on a landline.

 

You might simply have to wait a while for whatever Database Steam Authenticator accesses to update itself.

[jado]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Yes. Your phone company.

 

Though in all honesty, there's nothing anyone is going to be able to do to help you here. You should contact your phone company and try talking to them. I would guess that the issue is that the last person that "owned" your number, had it on a landline.

 

You might simply have to wait a while for whatever Database Steam Authenticator accesses to update itself.

Ok thank you. I just needed to know why it was happening, il try to talk to my carrier later to hopefully get this resolved. Thanks

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, jado said:

Ok thank you. I just needed to know why it was happening, il try to talk to my carrier later to hopefully get this resolved. Thanks

If the Carrier cannot give you any straight answers, I would next contact Steam Support.

[Mr.Meerkat]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Though in all honesty, there's nothing anyone is going to be able to do to help you here. You should contact your phone company and try talking to them. I would guess that the issue is that the last person that "owned" your number, had it on a landline.

Wut? In which country do landlines have the same "code" as mobiles? 

For example, in Edinburgh (and the UK I think), landlines starts off as something like 01... while mobile numbers starts off with 07... where it's obvious one is landline and one is mobile  

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Wut? In which country do landlines have the same "code" as mobiles? 

For example, in Edinburgh (and the UK I think), landlines starts off as something like 01... while mobile numbers starts off with 07... where it's obvious one is landline and one is mobile  

In all of North America (Well, I don't know about Mexico... @Misanthrope, got any knowledge bombs about Mexican phone numbers?)

 

Anyway, in the Canada and the US, there's no practical difference between a landline and a mobile phone number. Both have the same syntax:

Country Code - Area Code - Local/Regional Code - Identifier, ex:

1-474-555-6847 (I made this up, so if you call it, apologize to the random person lol)

 

In addition to that, you can carry your number over from one to the other. You essentially "own" your current phone number (You don't, really, but there are certain rights you have in regards to the number).

 

Many Carriers will intentionally assign a different Local/Regional Code to their mobile phone division, but this is an internal organizational thing only, and still won't prevent a user from carrying over (called "Porting") a phone number that was once a landline number. There are rules on how you can port a number, and when, but whether it's a Landline number or not is irrelevant.

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

-snip-

Oh dayum...fair enough then, that's kinda stupid IMO but you know, it's probably due to how I've been spoilt with easily identifiable phone numbers (considering how there is only one single company in the UK that handle landline numbers...)  

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Oh dayum...fair enough then, that's kinda stupid IMO but you know, it's probably due to how I've been spoilt with easily identifiable phone numbers (considering how there is only one single company in the UK that handle landline numbers...)  

It's not stupid at all. Let's say you've had a landline phone number for 10 years. One day you decide "Fuck it, I don't need a landline!" and decide to replace your landline with a Mobile Phone. Well crap, now you gotta learn a new phone number, and distribute that to all of your family/friends/business contacts/online accounts/banks, etc.

 

Or, you can just port that number over to the Mobile Phone, and everything is automatically redirected to your mobile.

[Mr.Meerkat]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

It's not stupid at all. Let's say you've had a landline phone number for 10 years. One day you decide "Fuck it, I don't need a landline!" and decide to replace your landline with a Mobile Phone. Well crap, now you gotta learn a new phone number, and distribute that to all of your family/friends/business contacts/online accounts/banks, etc.

 

Or, you can just port that number over to the Mobile Phone, and everything is automatically redirected to your mobile.

In that case, yes it's not stupid  

 

I guess it's just something I'm used to...

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

In that case, yes it's not stupid  

 

I guess it's just something I'm used to...

Landlines are going away in many places as it is. I personally see no reason to artificially limit the use of a phone number. Hell, you can even port the same phone number from:

Landline -> Mobile Phone -> VOIP Provider (Skype, Vonage, etc) -> Back to Landline -> Back to VOIP -> Back to Mobile phone

 

Or in any other order you want. As long as the number is on a current active account, it can be ported over. If you cancel your service before porting the number, however, then it's gone and goes back into the number pool.

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Landlines are going away in many places as it is. I personally see no reason to artificially limit the use of a phone number. Hell, you can even port the same phone number from:

Landline -> Mobile Phone -> VOIP Provider (Skype, Vonage, etc) -> Back to Landline -> Back to VOIP -> Back to Mobile phone

 

Or in any other order you want. As long as the number is on a current active account, it can be ported over. If you cancel your service before porting the number, however, then it's gone and goes back into the number pool.

From what I know, you can port a mobile number from one provider to another mobile provider while with landlines, I think it's something to do with our exchanges so if we're no longer connected to the same exchange, we cannot keep the same number...

[kirashi]

2 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

From what I know, you can port a mobile number from one provider to another mobile provider while with landlines, I think it's something to do with our exchanges so if we're no longer connected to the same exchange, we cannot keep the same number...

That would probably be it. In Canada, the CRTC has made it illegal to NOT allow number porting - standard landline and cellular carriers MUST allow number porting, providing all steps are followed appropriately so as to now screw up the way the system works. But again, as @dalekphalm noted, all our numbers are formatted as +1.250.555.5555 and don't have a separate Country code prefix to tell if it's landline or mobile.

 

Carriers and landline providers use the first set of 3 numbers after the +1. to denote which area/type of number it is, and occasionally you can actually receive a number that identifies as a landline as your cell number, which is probably what @jado is experiencing. Fixing this would require his phone provider to update the database to change this factor, but even then, some services like Steam may use a fixed database that doesn't get updated often so a new number might be required then.