RNK has expedited expansion of its recently launched Phone Number Bank service into 80 additional markets nationwide. Phone Number Bank is a solution that enables consumers to keep or “bank” their phone numbers for as long as they want. In response to questions about how consumers can maintain more ownership of their phone numbers, which prior to PNB were never really “their” numbers, Richard Koch, President and CEO of RNK Communications, states, “Until now, your phone number never really belonged to you. It was part of the phone network and was just a routing mechanism to make your land line or cell phone ring when someone called what they believed to be “your” number.

Koch continued, “Times have changed and people have changed. The average American moves more than ten times in his life, often having to change his number with each move. Phone Number Bank is similar to a bank in that RNK Communications is a regulated telephone company and will safely store a consumer’s number. People today typically have too many phone numbers and pay for lines associated with those numbers. It is the phone number that’s often valuable and not the associated lines for which a consumer is paying, on average, over $50 per month. Phone Number Bank allows these individuals to “bank” their phone numbers and forward calls coming into those multiple numbers to a single phone,” Koch said. The convenience afforded by the service was evident to a PNB customer who told Koch that when she moved she could simply tell her family and friends to reach her at the same telephone number.

Phone Number Bank customers are not only able to quickly and easily sign up for service through the www.phonenumberbank.com, but they can also check the status of their orders and identify where they want incoming calls forwarded (e.g., cell phone, landline, VoIP phone, etc.), changing that “forward to” number online at any time. Customers not electing to forward calls to another phone receive calls to a voicemail box, and can retrieve voicemail audio files online.

RNK’s decision to expedite its nationwide launch plans was based, in part, on the sudden loss of service experienced by over two hundred thousand customers of SunRocket, a VoIP provider that shut its doors with little notice. With approximately 80% of recent PNB inquiries originating from SunRocket customers, RNK recognized the need to answer the call of consumers who need a safe place to which they can move and manage their telephone numbers. With PNB, SunRocket and other VoIP customers can experience the truly unique benefit of never losing control of their numbers, opting to bank them, move them, forward calls through them – whatever these customers want to do with their numbers is now possible.

"SunRocket’s sudden demise is a harsh reminder of the potential vulnerability facing VoIP customers, as we are all operating in an emerging market in which governing rules and regulations are still being defined,” said Koch. “There remain important distinctions between VoIP and traditional telephone service, including notice requirements prior to loss of service – often not mandated for VoIP providers. As a fully regulated telephone company, which offers both PSTN and VoIP service, RNK is in the unique position to offer a truly secure option for VoIP and traditional telephone subscribers to keep their telephone numbers for as long as they like. With PNB, your phone number belongs to you, and not the company providing the phone line.”

Like with SunRocket customers, PNB similarly would have been useful to a group of GrandCentral Communications, Inc. customers who were recently notified by the company that the phone numbers these customers were told they would have for as long as they liked, were being changed. If these GrandCentral customers and SunRocket customers had “banked” their numbers with PNB, they need not have been in the position of losing them.

For additional information regarding RNK’s Phone Number Bank, please visit: www.phonenumberbank.com