JL68 said:

I have both SO & PC phones. SO phones are pre-activated. You can choose the phone # you like. PC phones are not. You have to dial a phone # to activate the phone. They will give you a new phone #. You have no choice. You have to use this phone # or you can port the phone # from your other phone.

Did the rep really let you choose which number you wanted? When I was activating my PC phone, the rep said that the system would select one number from a range of what was available, and the best she could do was try to request another one. But each time, the system would only offer one phone number that it chose.

When I was activating my Telus Pay & Talk phone, the web activation page gave me a big list of available phone numbers to choose from.

And that's a good point about the SO phones - they are all "pre-activated" with a phone number. If you like the idea of driving the 7-11 staff crazy, you can ask them to pull out every phone they have and you can check which one has the phone number you like the best (or not)!

Oh well, it wasn't that big a deal for me anyways - it's just a number.