On the landline side you can get out of a contract if “they”, the service provider, cannot find an original.
That would include their recordings of your agreement to a new contract.
BTW, now that you have your new number it belongs to you the subscriber. ATT, Verizon, Splint, et all are what we call RESPOTG’s(Responsible Organizations).
A Resporg is a manager of an address or number which you own. They, do not own it, you do.
I would contract with another carrier and be done with them.
With cellphone providers you will pay a termination fee of $200+ to break the contract or you can pay the full price of the phone.
If it were me I’d go down to a corporate store. They are usually located in malls or strip malls. You’ll need to go there, in person, to get the result you want.
The people on the phone have only so much power to help you on the one hand and they are incented not to or their compensation incentives direct them to other objectives that don’t help you.
Corporate stores have way more information at their ready and besides supporting consumers they also support corporate salespeople of ATT and their customers.
There are usually two or three corporate stores within a major county Like Santa Clare, Miami-Dade, DFW, etc. and in some even more but, you need to be sure you are at a corporate store not a consumer store.
Stay away from Kiosks. They will do anything to sell you an accessory.
*nevermind*