telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

, the long-distance operator is a telephone operator available to

assist Assist or ASSIST may refer to: Sports Several sports have a statistic known as an "assist", generally relating to action by a player leading to a score by another player on their team: *Assist (basketball), a pass by a player that facilitates a ba ...

with making long distance telephone calls (or ''toll calls'' in

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

), answering billing questions, making

collect call A collect call in Canada and the United States, known as a reverse charge call in other parts of the English-speaking world, is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense. In the past, collect c ...

s and other functions.

See also