Determine Carrier From Number -- How?

If you have the number, is there a way to determine the carrier in
order to sent a text message?

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› See More: Determine Carrier From Number -- How?

At 27 Jul 2007 11:09:51 -0500 jim evans wrote:
> If you have the number, is there a way to determine the carrier in
> order to sent a text message?


Not definitively thanks to local number portability. You can look up
which carrier the number was originally assigned to, but that won't tell
you if someone ported it to a new carrier.

Which, frankly, is fine. If you don't know me well enough to know who my
provider is, I probably don't want a text from you! ;-)


--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double
as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles,
but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles."
-Bill Maher 9/25/2003

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:05:55 -0600, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Not definitively thanks to local number portability. You can look up
>which carrier the number was originally assigned to, but that won't tell
>you if someone ported it to a new carrier.

How do I look up which carrier originally assigned the number?

>If you don't know me well enough to know who my
>provider is, I probably don't want a text from you! ;-)

Actually, I wanted to send a text message to my best friend of 40
years. I don't go around asking people who their cell service
provider is. I don't know the provider for a single friend or
acquaintance.

At 27 Jul 2007 18:25:41 -0500 jim evans wrote:

> How do I look up which carrier originally assigned the number?

Do a reverse lookup of the number at 411.com or whitepages.com.

> Actually, I wanted to send a text message to my best friend of 40
> years. I don't go around asking people who their cell service
> provider is. I don't know the provider for a single friend or
> acquaintance.

Why not just text him from your phone. You just need the phone number
then, not the carrier.

If you realy need todo it from a PC, you could use an old spammer trick.
Send the same message to your friend's number at every major carrier's e-
mail to text-message gateway- hitting Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, AT&T, T-
Mobile and, Alltel will cover 98% of wireless customers.

All but the correct one will bounce back as invalid, of course, but the
correct one will get through.

Remember that there's generally a 120-160 character limit for texts.

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double
as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles,
but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles."
-Bill Maher 9/25/2003

On 2007-07-27, jim evans <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:05:55 -0600, Todd Allcock
><[email protected]> wrote:
>>Not definitively thanks to local number portability. You can look up
>>which carrier the number was originally assigned to, but that won't tell
>>you if someone ported it to a new carrier.
>
> How do I look up which carrier originally assigned the number?

I like

http://www.telcodata.us/telcodata/telco

Dennis Ferguson

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:09:51 -0500, jim evans
<[email protected]> wrote:
>If you have the number, is there a way to determine the carrier in
>order to sent a text message?


In some countries you can and in some others you can't.

It's impossible to answer if you don't state what country you're in!

On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:27:40 -0700, Sorin Alexandrescu
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Another site doing carrier detection is UPS. Anyone know how they
>might be doing it ? They seem pretty accurate on the numbers I have
>tried. It even works correctly when the user has switched carriers,
>while telcodata.us or http://www.fonefinder.net/ give you the initial
>carrier.

Yes, but it's only valid for one single country in the world!

Do you know what country the OP is refering to?

If you really need to do it from the PC. Just use
[email protected]. They will automatically route it to the correct
carrier. Unless the number has been ported in the last couple of weeks
or so.




--
mrcamp

On Aug 2, 6:21 am, [email protected] wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:27:40 -0700, Sorin Alexandrescu
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Another site doing carrier detection is UPS. Anyone know how they
> >might be doing it ? They seem pretty accurate on the numbers I have
> >tried. It even works correctly when the user has switched carriers,
> >while telcodata.us orhttp://www.fonefinder.net/give you the initial
> >carrier.
>
> Yes, but it's only valid for one single country in the world!
>
> Do you know what country the OP is refering to?

Since the OP is using a houston.rr.com email address it's safe to
assume that he's talking about USA.

On 2007-08-01, Sorin Alexandrescu <[email protected]> wrote:
> Another site doing carrier detection is UPS. Anyone know how they
> might be doing it ? They seem pretty accurate on the numbers I have
> tried. It even works correctly when the user has switched carriers,
> while telcodata.us or http://www.fonefinder.net/ give you the initial
> carrier.
> I'd love to know how it's done.

What web site are you referring to?

There is a database of ported numbers maintained by these guys

http://www.npac.com/

which is used by the carriers for call routing and billing, but
the NDA that users are required to agree to prohibits disclosure of
the data for uses other than call routing unless there is a special
agreement which permits that use. This database has the information
you would need to determine the carrier for ported numbers, but I've not
seen it made publically available anywhere.

Dennis Ferguson

On 2007-08-10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:

> and what's so obvious about the domain rr.com???

It's obvious to people in the USA. rr.com is RoadRunner, the (I believe)
second largest cable Internet provider in this country.

It's probably not as obvious to people abroad.