Porting existing AT&T phone to U-Verse

After 1 hour plus on the phone (much of that time on hold) trying to get my home phone ported over to U-Verse, I am told it will not be activated for another 4 days. We have had very nice technicians twice come to set up and try to activate with no success. Finally today one technician found out that it is due to a problem with Cingular. I was confused, so I called and was told that it is because of a "handshake agreement" with Cingular wireless that my number is not activated yet. This is a number that I have had and been paying for with AT&T for years. While waiting for the "handshake agreement" to be complete for two weeks now, we are unable to use our phone, yet we are still paying for it. I was transferred to sales and told that nothing can be done to expedite it. In the meantime we were given a temporary number until we can get our original number back. Can anything be done to migrate customers' phone numbers in a quicker manner?