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 ...

s, remote call forwarding is a

service feature A vertical service code (VSC) is a sequence of digits and the signals star (*) and number sign (#) dialed on a telephone keypad or rotary dial to enable or disable certain telephone service features. Some vertical service codes require dialing of ...

that allows incoming calls to be forwarded to a remote

call forwarding Call forwarding, or call diversion, is a telephony feature of all telephone switching systems which redirects a telephone call to another destination, which may be, for example, a mobile or another telephone number where the desired called party is ...

number, such as a cell phone or another office location and is designated by the

call receiver Call or Calls may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Call, a type of betting in poker * Call, in the game of contract bridge, a bid, pass, double, or redouble in the bidding stage Music and dance * Call (band), from Lahore, Paki ...

. Customers may have a remote-forwarding

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 ...

in a central switching office without having any other local telephone service in that office. One common purpose for this service is to enable customers to retain their telephone number when they move to a location serviced by a different telephone exchange. The service is useful for business customers with widely advertised numbers which appear on headed paper, vehicles and various marketing literature. When customers ring, their calls are forwarded to the new location. Remote call forwarding is also a means for a suburban business to obtain a city-centre local number (with its full large-city coverage area) for inbound calls; while cheaper than a

foreign exchange line Foreign exchange service (FX) is an access service in a telecommunications network in which a telephone in a given exchange area is connected, via a private line, as opposed to a switched line, to a telephone exchange or central office in another e ...

, this can reduce

long-distance telephony In telecommunications, a long-distance call (U.S.) or trunk call (also known as a toll call in the U.K. ) is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are typically charged a higher billing rate ...

costs in markets where local calls are flat-rated but trunk calls are expensive. One alternative to RCF is Caller Redirect whereby callers simply hear an intercept message notifying them that the number has changed. Another alternative is to port the existing number to a

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 ...

carrier, which is not tied to a single physical location as the subscriber may be anywhere on broadband Internet. However, not all phone numbers can be ported.

Remote Access to Call Forwarding

Remote Call Forwarding (RCF) requires neither a physical telephone set nor physical input by customer to get calls forwarded. In this respect, it differs from the (similarly named) Remote Access to Call Forwarding in that the number is attached to a physical line where it rings normally until a call is made to a remote number to enable redirection. To activate Remote Access to Call Forwarding, a subscriber calls a provider-supplied Remote Access Directory Number, enters the telephone number of the line to be redirected along with a

personal identification number A personal identification number (PIN), or sometimes redundantly a PIN number or PIN code, is a numeric (sometimes alpha-numeric) passcode used in the process of authenticating a user accessing a system. The PIN has been the key to facilitat ...

(PIN), a

vertical service code A vertical service code (VSC) is a sequence of digits and the signals star (*) and number sign (#) dialed on a telephone keypad or rotary dial to enable or disable certain telephone service features. Some vertical service codes require dialing of ...

(such as 72# or *73) and the number to which the calls are to be forwarded. Remote Access to Call Forwarding allows incoming calls to be diverted and answered elsewhere if a subscriber cannot use their telephone normally (for instance, the number is assigned to a lost or stolen wireless handset or to a landline in need of repair service). In some cases, a business which subscribes to standard

(*72) may be able to request temporary redirection of inbound calls when calling a telco repair service number (such as 6-1-1) to report a line outage.

References

*{{FS1037C Calling features