telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

, a personal communications service is defined by the

Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) is a standards organization that develops technical and operational standards and solutions for the ICT industry, headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization is accredited by the ...

(ATIS) as "a set of capabilities that allows some combination of personal mobility, terminal mobility, and service profile management". Personal communications services use a special non-geographic

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

of the format ''5XX'' for assigning

telephone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...

s for service instances. The designation of the 5XX area code format was authorized by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

, and introduced into the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international callin ...

in 1995.

United States

In 1995,

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

introduced a "follow-me" service under the brand name of ''AT&T True Connections'' using area code 500. It was designed to replace the '' AT&T EasyReach 700'' service. Other local exchange carriers and

interexchange carrier An interexchange carrier (IXC), in U.S. legal and regulatory terminology, is a type of telecommunication company, commonly called a long-distance telephone company. It is defined as any carrier that provides services across multiple local access ...

s introduced similar competitive services. AT&T True Connections service was not well received. Companies, hotels, and others with PBX equipment continued to block the dialing of 500 because it was a caller-paid number. Phone-sex services also used the 500-prefix, forwarding the calls to various foreign countries. NPA 500 remains registered to a variety of telephone companies and is used for non-geographic services, including dial-up modem access. In 1996,

attempted to migrate users to its revised service called "Personal Reach" 800, built on a toll-free (receiver-paid) platform rather than the original (caller-paid) 500 program. AT&T has a US patent (5,907,811) on "personal reach service". AT&T then licensed and transferred all personal reach services to MCE, Inc. MCE was supposedly the company providing the back-end system for all personal reach services to AT&T. No public information was released on the transfer away from AT&T. Subscribers were notified by mail that bills would begin to arrive from MCE instead of AT&T. It is also believed that MCE is a subsidiary of EMNS, Inc., a web hosting company in Chicago. MCE continues to supply personal reach service using the AT&T transport network. AT&T discontinued AT&T True Connections in 2000, following the

approval of its

tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and poli ...

to cease providing the service. Although AT&T no longer uses the 500 code, it was supplemented by 533 in 2009, followed by 544 in December 2010. The 566 code was activated in April 2012. In March 2014, the 577 code was also activated. In September 2015 the 588 code was activated. In August 2016 the 522 code was activated. In September 2017 the 521 code was activated. In November 2018 the 523 code was activated. In September 2019 the 524 code was activated. In July 2020 the 525 code was activated. In January 2021 the 526 code was activated. Other codes in reserve for this use: 527, 528, 529, 532, 535, 538, 542, 543, 545, 546, 547, 549, 550, 552, 553, 554, 556, 558, 569, 578, and 589. On February 11, 2022, 103 of the 5XX-NXX codes were reported as available for assignment and the code 528 was designated as the next NPA code to be assigned. On March 2, 2022, the NANPA announced the initiation of NPA 528. On August 29, 2022, 193 of the 5XX-NXX codes were reported as available for assignment and the code 529 was designated as the next NPA code to be assigned. On September 16, 2022, the NANPA announced the initiation of NPA 529.

Canada

In 2015, the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

(CRTC) approved the Canadian Non-Geographic Code Assignment Guideline and the assignment of the 622, 633, 644, 655, 677, and 688 non-geographic numbering plan area (NPA) codes to meet the demand for telephone numbers related to technologies such as machine-to-machine applications. The first 6YY NPA to be used is 622 NPA, with additional numbers requested when 622 approaches exhaustion.

References

External links

Bellcore
_(now_ Bellcore
_(now_Telcordia_Technologies">Bellcore">Bellcore
_(now_Telcordia_Technologies)_assignment_of_Service_Access_Code_500.html" ;"title="Telcordia_Technologies.html" ;"title="Bellcore">Bellcore
(now Telcordia Technologies">Bellcore">Bellcore
(now Telcordia Technologies) assignment of Service Access Code 500">Telcordia_Technologies.html" ;"title="Bellcore">Bellcore
(now Telcordia Technologies">Bellcore">Bellcore
(now Telcordia Technologies) assignment of Service Access Code 500* [ftp://www.fcc.gov/pub/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Orders/2000/da000771.txt FCC Order Permitting AT&T to discontinue 500 number service]{{dead link, date=May 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes
NANPA Numbering Resources - PCS 5YY-NXX Assignments
Mobile telecommunications 500

United States

Canada

See also

References

External links