Area code 641 is a
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
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 ...
for a central portion of
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
, including
Mason City, and
Ottumwa. It was split off from
area 515 on July 9, 2000; this was the first such split in Iowa since the establishment of 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 1947.
Traffic pumping
Many
calling card and
conference
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...
service providers operate in area 641. For calls to a rural number in area 641, the long distance provider has to pay the termination fee to the receiving telecom party: up to 8 cents a minute. Using this arbitrage, some of the service providers operate here and require one to dial the "local access number" in area 641. Large telecom providers are the hardest hit with the costs for these so-called free service providers. Around March 2007
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 ...
filed a suit to withhold these arbitrage payments (AT&T got a $2 million bill a month).
In 2006, various companies began using Iowa's 641 as a number to access
voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of speech, voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms In ...
gateways, including one which purported to allow users to "call China for free".
The scheme, no longer in operation, was based on the wholesale cost of calls to rural Iowa being substantially more than the cost of Internet calls to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
See also
*
List of Iowa area codes
The state of Iowa is covered by five area codes. The map to the right is clickable, click on any of the area codes on the map to go to the area code for that region or use the text links below.
None of the Iowa codes are expected to need relief ...
References
External links
List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 641 Area Code
{{Area code box, State=IA,
This=area code 641,
N=
507
__NOTOC__
Year 507 ( DVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Anastasius and Venantius (or, less frequently, year 1260 ...
,
S=
660
__NOTOC__
Year 660 ( DCLX) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 660 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era b ...
,
E=
319,
563,
W=
515,
712
__NOTOC__
Year 712 ( DCCXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 712 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era b ...
,
S1=MN , S2=MO
641
__NOTOC__
Year 641 ( DCXLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 641 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
641
__NOTOC__
Year 641 ( DCXLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 641 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...