Local number portability has finally happened. With the new found ability for customers to take along their existing phone number when they choose to move to a new carrier, this has created opportunities for individuals who were hesitant to change phone service carriers in the past because they did not want to lose their cherished and long held phone number. There are more issues with local number portability and VOIP than with traditional land line carriers. Local Number Portability, also known as LNP or simply as Number Portability, has allowed for people to port their DID number so that they can walk away from their present phone service provider. In doing so, the individuals are capable of moving their number with them from one provider to another competing one. This works so long as the new carrier chosen has a network in the same area code in question. As an example of how local number portability VOIP works, consider the following. A customer may have his or her number with Verizon, Vonage, or AT&T. The person decides that he or she wants to port this number over to VOIP provider virtualphoneline.com. They are able to do it without a problem. The difficulties with local number portability VOIP come into play as some of the phone companies still will not permit the person to port away the number. Alternatively, such outfits might insist on charging the customer a fee for breaking his or her contract, before they will allow the individual to port away the number. A serious risk lies in the possibility of a person porting away the phone number, and then finding out later that he or she is not able to port it back out from this new carrier. The reader is quite possibly astonished at this prospect. Can this really happen, that a person’s phone number literally becomes stuck with a carrier? With VOIP phone carriers, it is possible. Presently, AT&T’s VOIP will refuse to take over any competitor’s VSP, or VOIP Service Provider, numbers. This means that if a person is a customer with Vonage, one of the classic pioneering majors in the VOIP carrier field, then he or she will find the choices to port the number away extremely limited. It may turn out that the only real solution is to pick out a new phone number. The best way to attempt to get around this dilemma lies in beginning with a phone number from the earlier incumbent phone company ILEC. This could then safely be ported over to the VOIP provider. Once a person made the decision to change VOIP providers, then he or she would stand a greater chance of keeping the phone number in question.