A toll-free, Freecall, Freephone, or 800 number is a special telephone number A telephone number or phone number is a sequence of digits used to call from one telephone line to another in a public switched telephone network. When telephone numbers were invented, they were short — as few as one, two or three digits — and were given verbally to a switchboard operator. As phone systems have grown and interconnected to, in that the called party The called party is a person who (or device that) answers a telephone call. The person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call is the calling party is charged the cost of the calls by the telephone carrier A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Most of the largest telcos, whatever their origins, are or were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies[citation needed]. These monopolies are often referred to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs, instead of the calling party The calling party is a person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call over the public switched telephone network, usually by dialing a telephone number. A toll-free number is assigned from a special dialling prefix range A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunications to allocate and route telephone numbers in a telephone network. A closed numbering plan, such as found in North America, features fixed length area codes and local numbers. An open numbering plan features variance in length of area code or local number, or both (also known as area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunications to allocate and route telephone numbers in a telephone network. A closed numbering plan, such as found in North America, features fixed length area codes and local numbers. An open numbering plan features variance in length of area code or local number, or both) such as 0800 where all calls to those prefixes are free to the caller.
The cost of the call to the called party is usually based on factors such as the amount of usage the number experiences, the cost of the trunk lines to the facility, and possibly a monthly flat rate service charge. The called party may use a Freephone number because:
- They charge the calling party in another way, such as for technical support Technical support is a range of services providing assistance with technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, or other electronic or mechanical goods. In general, technical support services attempt to help the user solve specific problems with a product—rather than providing training, customization, or other support calls.
- They make a sale following the call to the toll-free number.
- Sales were enhanced with the inclusion of toll-free support.
- Improvement of customer satisfaction by providing free after-sales support in certain products/services.
- They want friends and family to be able to contact them without paying long distance.
Toll-free numbers differ from collect calls A collect call in the USA and Canada or reverse charge call in the UK and other countries is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense. In the past, collect calls were only possible as an operator-assisted call, but with the introduction of computer-based telephone dialing equipment, it is now (where the called party also pays for the call) in that the call is always free to toll-free numbers, whereas the called party has to give special permission on a call by call basis to pick up the charge in the case of collect calls.
Early history
'Freephone' services appeared in the 1960s, with the Post Office The General Post Office was officially established in England in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of both the state postal system and telecommunications carrier. Similar General Post Offices were established across the British Empire. In 1969 the GPO was abolished and the assets transferred to The Post Office, introducing such a facility in 1960.[1] A Toll-free service was also originated on May 2, 1967 by AT&T AT&T Inc. is the largest provider of fixed telephony in the United States, and also provides broadband and subscription television services. AT&T is the second largest provider of mobile telephony service in the United States, with over 90.1 million wireless customers, and more than 210 million total customers[citation needed] as an alternative to collect calling A collect call in the USA and Canada or reverse charge call in the UK and other countries is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense. In the past, collect calls were only possible as an operator-assisted call, but with the introduction of computer-based telephone dialing equipment, it is now and to reduce the need for operators. AT&T referred to the service as IN-WATS, or Inward Wide-Area Telephone Service (see WATS In U.S. telecommunications, a Wide Area Telephone Service is a long distance service offering for customer dial-type telecommunications between a given customer [user] station and stations within specified geographic rate areas employing a single telephone line between the customer user location and the serving central office. Each access line may lines).[citation needed] The first company to use toll-free lines hosted numbers for major companies. Americana Hotels, Budget Rent a Car, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott Hotels, Roadway Inns, Sheraton Hotels, and Quality Inn were a few of the major companies hosted. They grew very quickly but still went out of business. When this happened, all the major players reacted by leasing space in and behind that original Call Center location (93rd and Bedford in Omaha, Nebraska Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles (30 km) north of the mouth of the Platte River. Omaha is the anchor of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, which includes Council Bluffs, Iowa,) in strip malls[citation needed] so they could continue to answer their toll free calls and also rehire the already trained staffing and management. Northwestern Bell and AT&T dedicated staff to the 'Res City' area and their staff actually had offices located in the same strip malls[citation needed] to help make the transition and service the accounts going forward. That corner of 93rd and Bedford became known as 'Res City' because of all the Call Centers taking reservations there.
As the Call Centers continued to compete for the same talent pool, the larger chains relocated into buildings specifically built for them near the area while others moved outside of the state to avoid the direct competition for staffing.
Northwestern Bell and AT&T continued to cater to the businesses in Omaha and would activate service within 24 hours for clients in Omaha, giving Omaha a major advantage over other locations that would have to wait weeks for service. In 1983, Northwestern Bell and AT&T in conjunction with Telesystems and First Data Resources/WATS Marketing, developed a method to use Direct Inward Dialing (DID) to handle traffic so Call Centers no longer had to have dedicated lines or trunk groups as they are called, to handle each telephone number. This was a major improvement in Call Center call flow design and this type of called number identification is still used by Call Centers today.
Inventor of modern 800 toll-free system
Roy P. Weber (1945-2005) from Bridgewater, New Jersey Bridgewater Township is a township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 42,940 was the inventor of the second-generation 800 toll-free number system in 1978. Weber's U.S. Patent No. 4,191,860 was filed July 13, 1978 and issued March 4, 1980 and assigned to AT&T. AT&T started to use this new technology from the Weber patent in 1982. Weber's invention was called 'Data Base Communication Call Processing Method' ... more commonly called today a 'Toll-Free Call' or '800 Call'.[2]
Growth of 800 toll-free numbers as a business tool
From 1967 to the AT&T breakup in 1984, AT&T had an absolute monopoly on assigning 800 numbers to subscribing customers.[citation needed] Billing during that period was based on average hours usage per line per month. This type of billing required users to adjust their active lines based on actual peak hour usage to avoid buying hours at higher low tier rates. Usage would average 13-15 cents per minute depending on the traffic being billed.
From 1984 to 1993 Toll-Free customers were locked into a system that wed them to the telephone carrier like AT&T or MCI that assigned them their 800 number. To increase competition, the FCC, in 1991, ordered the implementation of 800-number portability by May 1, 1993.[citation needed] 800 Number Portability means that toll-free numbers are not associated with a particular telephone carrier such as AT&T or MCI. 800 subscribers can switch to another carrier without changing their toll-free number. Before toll-free number portability, toll-free subscribers were locked into their carriers. They could not change those carriers without changing their 800 numbers. Starting in the early 90s, Toll-Free 800 Service became a viable business tool with the use on Vanity Numbers such as 1-800-FLOWERS.[3] With these changes rates have continued to fall and the majority of large users are now buying toll free services for less than 2 cents per minute. Toll Free has become so popular that 800 is no longer the only toll free area code. Area codes 866, 877, 888 were all added to meet the increased demands of the end users.
In 1985, British Telecom BT Group plc is the privatised former state telecommunications operator in the United Kingdom. It is the dominant fixed line telecommunications and broadband Internet provider in the UK, and also operates in more than 170 countries around the world. It is headquartered in the BT Centre in the City of London in the United Kingdom started using 0800 (Freefone) and 0345 (local-rate) numbers.[4]
Toll-free vanity number for branding & direct response
A toll-free vanity number or mnemonics is a 1-800 telephone number that is easy to remember because it spells something and means something like 1-800-FLOWERS[5] or 1-800-BUSINESS.[6] A great vanity number, being a phoneword Phonewords are alphanumeric equivalents of a telephone number. In many countries, there exist letters corresponding to each digit on a telephone keypad. The letters corresponding to a particular telephone number can form a word, a partial word, an acronym, abbreviation, or an alphanumeric combination; these are known as phonewords, is easier to remember than a numeric phone number such as 1-866-348-7934. Businesses use easy recognizable 1-800 vanity numbers as both a branding and a direct response tool in their advertising (radio, television, print, outdoor, etc.) since they are proven to increase response rates by 30-60%[7], for example, some attorneys might include the word law in their phone number such as 1-800-LAW-1333, to increase memorability. Vanity 800 Numbers like 1-800-FLOWERS and 1-800-PLUMBER are rare and valuable for the company using them in branding and advertising. In 2006 it was reported that AT&T paid over $1.32 million to acquire the Vanity Number 1-800-YELLOWPAGES in combination with the sale of the Domain Name 1800YELLOWPAGES.COM. 1-800-COMPANY transferred for $10 million in 2008.[8] Top tier companies like Fidelity Investments use a similar Telephone Vanity Number (1-800-FIDELITY) and Internet Domain Name (FIDELITY.COM) to match their Business Name (FIDELITY). In Australia, 1800 word numbers little known 5 years ago, have recently transferred for millions of dollars. In developing countries adopting the system, such as Thailand, the prominent international companies such as BMW, NEC, Mercedes, TNT, have acquired numbers however to date, the industry is yet to be realized.
North America
Toll-free numbers in the North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan is an integrated telephone numbering plan of 24 countries and territories: the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda, and 16 of the Caribbean countries. The term is also used, by metonymy, to refer to the geographic area in which that plan has been implemented (NANP) are sometimes called "One-800 numbers" after the original area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunications to allocate and route telephone numbers in a telephone network. A closed numbering plan, such as found in North America, features fixed length area codes and local numbers. An open numbering plan features variance in length of area code or local number, or both which was used to dial them. They include the area codes 800 since 1967 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar, 888 (since 1996 1996 was a leap year that started on a Monday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1996th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 996th year of the 2nd millennium; the 96th year of the 20th century; and the 7th of the 1990s), 877 (since 1998 1998 was a common year that started on a Thursday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1998th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 998th year of the 2nd millennium; the 98th year of the 20th century; and the 9th of the 1990s), and 866 (since 2000 2000 is a leap year that started on a Saturday, in accordance with the Gregorian Calendar. It was the 2000th year of the Common Era or the Anno Domini designation, and the last year of the 20th century and of the 2nd millennium. 2000 was designated as:). Area codes reserved for future expansion include 855 , 844, 833, 822, 880 through 887, and 889.
Some regular area codes A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunications to allocate and route telephone numbers in a telephone network. A closed numbering plan, such as found in North America, features fixed length area codes and local numbers. An open numbering plan features variance in length of area code or local number, or both may be deceptively similar to toll-free prefixes, such as 801 385 and 801 are area code overlays under the North American Numbering Plan covering the Wasatch Front in northern Utah. Specifically, 385 and 801 cover Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, and Morgan counties. Some cities and towns included in this area code are Salt Lake City, Ogden, Layton, Bountiful, Orem, Provo, Kearns, Alta, Murray, Midvale, and (Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. Salt Lake City has a population of 181,698 as of July 1, 2008, making it the 126th largest city in the United States. The Salt Lake City metropolitan area spans Salt Lake, Summit and Tooele counties, and), 860 Area code 860 is a telephone area code that covers the eastern and northwestern parts of Connecticut. The area code stretches along the eastern and northern borders as well as small portion of the western border. The boundary with area code 203 runs along towns such as New Milford, Watertown, and Southington. The area code was created in 1995 to (eastern and northwestern Connecticut Southwestern Connecticut is part of the New York metropolitan area; three of Connecticut's eight counties, including most of the state's population, are in the New York City combined statistical area, commonly called the Tri-State Region. Connecticut's center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County), 843 Area code 843 is an area code in South Carolina that covers Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Florence and other parts of eastern South Carolina (Coastal South Carolina The colony was originally named in honor of King Charles I, as Carolus is Latin for Charles), 814 Area code 814 is a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania telephone area code which serves the central and northwestern region of the state including the cities of Altoona, Erie, State College and Johnstown (western and central Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary), 856 Area Code 856 is an area code in the U.S. state of New Jersey created in 1999 by a split of area code 609. It covers southwestern New Jersey, in particular the Camden/Cherry Hill and Vineland areas, as well as a very small part of Willingboro Township, along with the western part of Burlington County, while 609 covers the rest of Willingboro and (southern New Jersey The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The English later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George), 808 The 808 telephone area code covers the inhabited and developed areas of the Hawaiian Islands out to Midway Island. 808 was issued as Hawaii's area code shortly after its statehood in 1959 (Hawaii The state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian Island chain, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles . At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight "main islands" are (from the northwest to southeast) Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and Hawaiʻi. The last is by), 845 (Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley refers to the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York state, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy. Historically a cradle of European settlement in the northeastern United States and a strategic battleground in colonial wars, it now consists of and Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau. They are sometimes considered an extension of the, New York New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is known for its status as a financial, cultural, transportation, and manufacturing center, and for its history as a gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, it is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both state and) and 818 Area code 747 and Area code 818 are California telephone area codes consisting largely of the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. They cover roughly two million people (Los Angeles, California Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, and with a population of 3.8 million is the largest city in the state of California and the Western United States. Additionally the city spans over 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km2) in Southern California and is anchored to the world's 13th largest metropolitan area with 17.7 million). This similarity has also been exploited by fraudsters in international locations that can be direct dialed with what appear at first glance to be domestic area codes such as 809 (Dominican Republic Inhabited by Taínos since the 7th century, the territory of the Dominican Republic was reached by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, namely Santo Domingo, the country's capital and Spain's first capital in the New World. In Santo Domingo stand, among other firsts in the). Toll-free numbers are also sometimes confused with 900-numbers Premium-rate telephone numbers are telephone numbers for telephone calls during which certain services are provided, and for which prices higher than normal are charged. Unlike a normal call, part of the call charge is paid to the service provider, thus enabling businesses to be funded via the calls. While the billing is different, calls are, for which the telephone company bills the callers at rates far in excess of long-distance service rates for services such as recorded information or live chat.
The toll-free numbers can only be called from certain phone numbers, depending upon the preferences of the customer (and sometimes the provider) who has the phone numbers. The default is that these numbers are available from any phone in Canada or the USA. However, many US toll-free numbers cannot be accessed from Canada, and many Canadian toll-free numbers cannot be accessed from the USA. Some are not accessible from pay phones (which the provider passes as an ANI Automatic Number Identification is a feature of telephony intelligent network services that permits subscribers to display or capture the billing telephone number of a calling party. In the United States it is part of Inward Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS). The ANI service was created by AT&T for internal long distance billing purposes, and code). Calls from payphones assess the toll free owner an additional fee in the USA as mandated by the FCC. Although toll-free numbers are not accessible internationally, many phone services actually call through the USA, and in this case the toll-free numbers become available. Examples of these services are the MCI Worldphone international calling card and Vonage Vonage (pronounced /ˈvɑːnɪdʒ/) is a publicly-held commercial voice over IP (VoIP) network and SIP company that provides telephone service via a broadband connection. The company's name is a play on their motto "Voice-Over-Net-AGE".[citation needed] internet telephone. However, many calling card services charge their own fee when their toll-free numbers are used to make calls, or when their toll-free numbers are used from pay phones.
When a NANP telephone number is written or printed as an international number, the number should be prefixed by a "+1" and a space, e.g.: +1 555-555-5555. The groups of digits within the NANP number should be visually separated by dashes, spaces or periods per ITU-T Rec. E.123 to make them easier to recognize and remember. However, when writing toll-free numbers that are not accessible from other countries, in order to make it clear that the initial 1 is not a country code, the plus-sign (+) and space should not be used, e.g. 1-800-xxx-yyyy. Restrictions (such as the number is not available from pay phones, cell phones, Canada, or other countries) should also be stated with any listing, but often are not. Although phone companies do not charge the caller for any toll-free number, charges may be billed by the recipients of these calls by some other method.
From many countries (e.g. the UK), US toll-free numbers can be dialed, but the caller first gets a recorded announcement that the call is not free, and perversely, on many carriers, the cost of calling a 'toll-free' number can be higher than to a normal number.
US toll-free numbers could at one time be accessed from certain other NANP countries on a paid basis by replacing the 800 by 880, 888 by 881, and 877 by 882. Thus, to reach 1-800-xxx-yyyy from a NANP country where it was blocked, 1-880-xxx-yyyy could be dialed. Areas codes 880, 881 and 882 have since been recovered.
A limited number of US toll-free numbers may be accessed internationally free of charge to the caller by dialing through the AT&T AT&T Inc. is the largest provider of fixed telephony in the United States, and also provides broadband and subscription television services. AT&T is the second largest provider of mobile telephony service in the United States, with over 90.1 million wireless customers, and more than 210 million total customers USADirect service. This is one way in which US companies may provide toll-free customer service According to Jamier L. Scott. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation." to their international clients.
In addition, US toll-free numbers may be accessed free of charge regardless of the caller's location by some IP telephone Voice over Internet Protocol is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VOIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, services.
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Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:27:32 GMT+00:00
Comparison PR Web (press release) Users comparing 800 phone numbers on PBXCompare.com can now compare 800 number services on discounts offered for signing up for an annual contract. ...
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Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:00:00 GM
There are a . number. of types of . telephone numbers. : listed and unlisted land line . numbers. , . toll free numbers. , cell . phone numbers. , business . numbers. , fax . numbers. etc. For public land line and . toll free numbers. , the . telephone. owners' ...
Q. All I can find is regular telephone numbers and I'm looking for the toll free or 1800 number for them.
Asked by Lisa Krakow - Wed Jul 21 19:11:13 2010 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments
A. The toll free telephone number for Lexington Law Progrexion is 877-293-5149. You can call between the following hours: Mon-Fri : 6:00 am to 8:00 pm Sat, Sun : 8:00 am to 8:00 pm (all times Mountain)
Answered by Jim Haskins - Wed Jul 21 19:14:13 2010
