Gethome writes: "From your links; CID Ninja shows one (geographically distant) company (AT&T) and FreeCarrierLookup shows another (closer) company (a baby Bell)."
Strange-- I was expecting it to return 'Sprint'. Was your wife's number originally on the AT&T network (cellular, or a landline), and then ported to CellNuvo? (Perhaps with another intervening cellular carrier.)
It was on AT&T (cell) for many years then on R+ for a couple of years then CellNUVO.
I am.
Thanks.
That returns - "Cingular Wireless/2".
OK-- thanks.
Despite what we think about number portability, the original company issuing a phone number retains 'ownership' of the number-- it's 'loaned' (or perhaps more accurately re-directed) to whatever provider we've moved the number to since.
If your number was in limbo somewhere inside Red Pocket/Sprint, or inside Sprint at all, the carrier lookups should have returned 'Sprint', since Sprint would still be the caretaker of the number.
But all 3 of the carrier lookups say AT&T, so it appears that the number has reverted back to the original issuing owner of the number, and returned to AT&T's pool. It's not buried at Sprint any longer. It doesn't seem likely that it would have remained unassigned in AT&T's number pool for that long, but who knows.....
This is getting a little beyond my depth of understanding: I suspect that AT&T might be in a better position to dig that number out for you than Sprint.
Yes. It did seem like that from the 3 searches. I will try Sprint first then AT&T to see if either can retrieve it.
Thank you again for all your input.