As with suspending, deactivating your device essentially means deactivating or canceling your phone number. We also call it "expiring" your number and this means the following:
· your phone number is returned to the pool of numbers available to anyone activating a device
· you can't port this number out of Madstar Mobile since it's no longer active and no longer belongs to you
Deactivating your number means you are giving up ownership of that phone number. While you can reactivate your device with a new number, since Madstar’s new numbers are randomly assigned, you wouldn't be getting your old number back.
When to deactivate:
· you absolutely no longer want ownership of the phone number associated with the device and don't care about ever having that phone
number again
When NOT to deactivate:
· you want to stop service to the device for a little while but still want to keep that number
· you plan to move the phone number to another device
· you want to port the phone number away from Madstar Mobile
· your device has been lost and you still want to try locate it and/or move the number to another phone
· your device has been stolen and you want to move the number to another phone
Most of the situations in the "when NOT to deactivate" category are good reasons to suspend your device/phone number, but not to deactivate it.