I just went through 2 days and 10 people of phone # porting hell.  Even though phone numbers do not belong to anybody, but whatever company you had it with from the very first beginning  is the one that has control over it. 

Even though I had my (home) phone number with TWC last, it didn't belong to TWC, it belonged to AT&T because i brought my phone number with me when I dissed AT&T and went to TWC. 

AT&T's DSL sucked and their bills was 5 pages long with fees. 

So, I was with TWC for two years and decided that I will give using my cell phone rather than having a cell phone and home phone.  So I dissed my home phone.  After 3 months and a much, much better deal I went back to TWC and wanted my old phone #back but that came with a price.

TWC had to send back my phone # after 45 days to AT&T according to the law.  As far as AT &T was concerned that number didn't belong to them because I wasn't a customer so it goes into a black hole pool.

You would think that AT&T would have been like oh yeah we have the number in the pool, here take it.  Did not happen.  I actually had to become a customer of AT &T again before they would give the number to TWC.  I got my credit report pulled, and a temporary cost of $20 a month until TWC snatch the number back.

What a trip.