Toll-free telephone numbers in the North American Numbering Plan
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In the United States of America, Canada, and other countries participating in 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 ...
, a
toll-free telephone number A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefi ...
has one of the area codes 800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, and 888. Area code 822 is expected to be used in the future, followed by 880 through 887, then 889. However,
811 __NOTOC__ Year 811 ( DCCCXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Byzantine–Bulgarian War: Emperor Nikephoros I organises a new ca ...
is reserved as a three-digit number for various other purposes. In addition, 899 is reserved as a member of the series ''x9x'' for future numbering plan expansion. Calls to these numbers are free to the caller if dialed from land-line phones, but may incur mobile airtime charges for cellular phones.


History

Most of the United States and all of Canada uses a flat-rate structure for local calls, which incur no per-call cost to residential subscribers. Long distance calls had higher prices. As regulators in North America had long allowed
long-distance calling 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 ...
to be priced artificially high in return for artificially low rates for local service, subscribers tended to make toll calls rarely and to keep them deliberately brief. Some businesses, eager to sell their products to buyers outside the local calling area, were willing to accept
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 or installed special services, such as
Zenith number A Zenith number was a special type of telephony service that allowed a calling party to call the number's owner at no charge by requesting the call from a switchboard operator and citing the "Zenith", "Enterprise" or "WX" number. The service prece ...
service, where they paid the cost of receiving telephone enquiries. Initially, all of these calls had to be completed by the
switchboard operator In the early days of telephony, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated system ...
. The first automated toll-free numbers were assigned with area code 800, created as inbound
Wide Area Telephone Service Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) was a flat-rate long-distance service offering for customer dial-type telecommunications in some of the countries that adhere to the North American Numbering Plan. The service was between a given customer phone ( ...
(InWATS) in 1966 (U.S. intrastate) and 1967 (interstate). These terminated on special fixed-rate trunks which would accept calls from a specified calling area with either no limit or a specific maximum number of hours per month. The billing of calls was not itemized and the expensive fixed-rate line was only within financial reach of large corporations and government agencies. Typically, a service provider offered a variety of zones, each costing more than the smaller ones, but adding progressively larger areas from which calls would be accepted for a customer. In the early 1980s,
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
received a patent for what became AT&T's "Advanced 800 Service", a computer-controlled system where any toll-free number could point to any destination number, such as to a small business local number instead of a special InWATS line, and an itemized bill generated only for the calls the business actually received. By breaking the link between the number's exchange prefix and geographic location, this system opened opportunities for
vanity number A vanity number is a local or toll-free telephone number for which a subscriber requests an easily remembered sequence of numbers for marketing purposes. While many of these are phonewords (such as 1-800-Flowers, 313-DETROIT, 1-800-Taxicab or 1-80 ...
advertising – an advantage in media like
commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (an ...
where numbers need to be memorable. The toll-free long distance market was opened to competition after 1986 and a
RespOrg In the North American Numbering Plan, a RespOrg (a contraction for responsible organization) is a company that maintains the registration for individual toll-free telephone numbers in the distributed Service Management System/800 database. Their fun ...
system instituted in 1993 to provide
toll-free number portability Toll-free number portability (Canada, US, New Zealand) or freephone number portability (Australia, UK) allows the subscriber of a freephone number to switch providers while retaining the same number for incoming calls. Similar schemes exist in man ...
between rival carriers using the SMS/800 database. Open competition also brought an end to the pattern of long distance subsidizing local service, bringing per-minute charges down to levels where any business could afford to take orders using an 800-number. Originally, 800-services were isolated between the US and Canada, but in 1984, an agreement between carriers in the two countries allowed the numbers in each country to be accessible to the other; providers of 800 service were able to add zones to cover the expanded areas able to be offered. The arrival of Advanced 800 Service meant that numbers originally limited for use in Canada became available to American customers, and vice versa.


Operation

The original 800-code operated for over thirty years before its 7.8 million possible numbers were depleted, but new toll-free area codes are being depleted at an increasing rate both by more widespread use of the numbers by
voice-over-IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
, pocket
pager A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknow ...
s, residential, and small business use, and response tracking for individual advertisements (each ad from each client gets a different freephone number) or sale, lease or shared use. Some geographic area codes are similar to the toll-free codes, ''e.g.'', 801, 818, 860. Toll-free numbers are also sometimes confused with 900-numbers, 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. These toll-free numbers can normally be called from any telephone in Canada or the U.S., though the owner (and sometimes the provider) can put restrictions on their use. Sometimes they accept calls only from either Canada or the U.S., or even only from certain states or provinces. Some are not accessible from pay phones. Calls from pay phones assess the toll-free owner an additional fee in the U.S., as mandated by the FCC. Although toll-free numbers are not accessible internationally, many phone services actually call through the U.S., and in this case the toll-free numbers become available. Examples of these services are the erstwhile MCI Worldphone international calling card and any U.S.-based Internet telephone gateway. 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. From many countries, such as the U.K., U.S. toll-free numbers can be dialed, but the caller first gets a recorded announcement that the call is not free; in fact, on many carriers, the cost of calling a "toll-free" number can be higher than that of calling a normal number.


Operator handling

In the United States, both
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 (IXCs) such as Sprint, AT&T Inc., and
Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...
, and Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) such as Verizon and AT&T offer toll-free services. The way that a toll-free number is handled depends on whether it is a domestic or an interexchange call. Most countries are divided into regions called exchanges, and within each exchange a local telephone company handles all phone services. Intraexchange calls, which do not leave the individual region, would be managed by the individual local telephone company. Calls that cross U.S. LATA boundaries, or originate in one country and terminate in another, are referred to as inter-exchange calls. The format of the toll-free number is called a non-geographic number, in contrast to
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 associated with households that are geographic. (Since the advent of cell phones and voice over IP, households can have any area code in the U.S., but it is still geographic in the sense that calls from that area code are considered local, but the recipient can be physically anywhere). In the latter case, it is possible to determine an approximate location of the caller from the area code (e.g. New York or London). In contrast, toll-free numbers could be physically located anywhere in the world. When a toll-free number is dialed, the phone company must determine where the actual physical destination is, which is achieved by using the
intelligent network The Intelligent Network (IN) is the standard network architecture specified in the ITU-T Q.1200 series recommendations. It is intended for fixed as well as Global System for Mobile Communications, mobile telecommunication, telecom networks. It al ...
capabilities embedded into the network. In the simplest case, the toll-free number is translated into a regular geographic number, which is then routed by the
telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...
in the normal way. More complicated cases may apply special routing rules in addition such as Time of Day routing. Toll-free numbers are normally specific to each country. Canadian numbers are an exception as they are drawn from the same SMS / 800 pool as other
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 ...
countries; the
+800 A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefi ...
Universal International Freephone Number is an exception as these work from multiple country codes. The arbitrary distinctions between Local Exchange Carrier / Interexchange carrier, intrastate / interstate and the
LATA Lata (Hindi: लता) is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian female given name, which means "creeper" and "vine". Lata may refer to: Notable people named Lata *Lata Bhatt (born 1954), Indian singer. *Lata (born 1975), Musician. *Lata Mangeshkar (1929–20 ...
structure are artificial U.S. regulatory constructs which do not have direct parallels in Canada or any other nation.


Routing in the U.S.

The IXCs generally handle traffic crossing
local access and transport area Local access and transport area (LATA) is a term used in U.S. telecommunications regulation. It represents a geographical area of the United States under the terms of the Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) entered by the United States District ...
(LATA) boundaries. A LATA is a geographical area within the U.S. that delineates boundaries of the LEC. LECs can provide local transport within LATAs. When a customer decides to use toll-free service, they assign a Responsible Organization (RespOrg) to own and maintain that number. The RespOrg can be either the IXC that is going to deliver the majority of the toll-free services or an independent
RespOrg In the North American Numbering Plan, a RespOrg (a contraction for responsible organization) is a company that maintains the registration for individual toll-free telephone numbers in the distributed Service Management System/800 database. Their fun ...
. When a toll-free number is dialed, each digit is analyzed and processed by the LEC. The toll-free call is identified as such by the
service switching point In telephony, a service switching point (SSP) is the telephone exchange that initially responds, when a telephone caller dials a number, by sending a query to a central database called a service control point (SCP) so that the call can be handled. ...
(SSP). The SSP is responsible for sending call information to the service control point (SCP), routing the request through at least one
signal transfer point A Signal Transfer Point (STP) is a node in an SS7 network that routes signaling messages based on their destination point code in the SS7 network. It works as a router that relays SS7 messages between ''signaling end-points'' (SEPs) and other s ...
(STP) in the
Signalling System 7 Signalling System No. 7 (SS7) is a set of telephony signaling protocols developed in 1975, which is used to set up and tear down telephone calls in most parts of the world-wide public switched telephone network (PSTN). The protocol also perform ...
(SS7) network. SS7 is a digital out-of-band method of transmitting signalling (call control) information in the
Public Switched Telephone Network The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides Communications infrastructure, infrastructure and services for public Telecommunications, telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that ...
(PSTN). The SS7 network is a
packet-switched network In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the pack ...
carrying signaling data (setup and tear down of the call and services) separate from the circuit-switched bearer network (the payload of the telephone call) in the AIN services network. The SSP asks the SCP where to send the call. The LEC will determine to which IXC that number is assigned, based on the customer's choice. Toll-free numbers can be shared among IXCs. A customer may do this for disaster recovery or so they can negotiate a better price. For example, a customer may assign 50% of their traffic to Sprint and 50% to AT&T. Once the LEC determines to which IXC to send the call, it is sent to the IXCs point of presence (POP). The IXCs SCP must now determine where to send the call. Once the final determination of where the call is supposed to go is completed, the call is then routed to the subscriber's trunk lines. In a call center or contact center environment, the call is then typically answered by a telephone system known as an
automatic call distributor An automated call distribution system, commonly known as automatic call distributor (ACD), is a telephony device that answers and distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals or agents within an organization. ACDs direct calls based ...
(ACD) or
private branch exchange A business telephone system is a multiline telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing systems ranging in technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX). A business telephone syst ...
(PBX). The subsequent routing of the call may be done in many ways, ranging from simple to complex depending on the needs of the owner of the toll-free number. Some of the available options are: ;Time-of-Day (TOD) routing: An example of using TOD routing would be a company with a call center on the east coast and a call center on the west coast. TOD routing would enable Follow the Sun routing. The east coast center opens first and calls are sent to that destination earlier in the day. As the time changes across the country, expanded coverage would be offered by the call center in the west. ;Day of Week (DOW) or Day of Year (DOY) routing: Depending on the day of the week and business practices, not all call centers operate 24×7. Some centers may be closed for weekends or holidays. DOW routing allows alternate routing for calls that arrive on specific days. DOY routing allows for alternate routing on fixed holidays (example December 25). ;Area Code or Exchange routing: Toll-free traffic may also be routed depending upon the location of the caller. For instance, if a company has call centers in the north and in the south, they may express a preference to have their southern callers speak with people in the southern call centers. Companies may also wish to take advantage of the difference in interstate rates versus intrastate rates. For example, the cost of a telephone call across multiple states may be less expensive than a call within a state, and as a result, the ability to route a call originating in Michigan to a call center outside Michigan can save a company substantial amounts of money. ;Least-Cost routing: Least-Cost routing is a variant of area code / exchange routing in which an independent
RespOrg In the North American Numbering Plan, a RespOrg (a contraction for responsible organization) is a company that maintains the registration for individual toll-free telephone numbers in the distributed Service Management System/800 database. Their fun ...
sends calls via different carriers based on which is least expensive for any given origination point. The RespOrg is not the carrier. A Canadian carrier could be used for Canadian calls and a U.S. carrier for American calls; a user with many inbound local
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 ...
numbers in multiple cities could convert toll-free calls on one main toll-free number to local calls in each city where it has a
point of presence A point of presence (PoP) is an artificial demarcation point or network interface point between communicating entities. A common example is an ISP point of presence, the local access point that allows users to connect to the Internet with their ...
. ;Percentage Allocation routing: If a company has multiple call centers, the company can choose to route calls across a number of call centers on a percentage basis. For example, an airline with ten call centers may choose to allocate 10% of all incoming traffic to each center. ;All-Trunks-Busy routing: If at a given time a company's trunk facilities can no longer handle the incoming traffic, an alternate destination may be chosen. This assists companies handling unexpected call volumes or during crisis times. ;Ring No Answer Routing: Some carriers have the ability to pull a call back into the network if the call is not answered. This provides for contingency routing for calls that ring and are not answered at the final destination. ;Emergency or Disaster routing: Companies usually have some type of disaster plan to deal with both natural (e.g. floods, fires and earthquakes) and man-made (e.g. bomb threats) emergencies. IXCs can provide alternate destinations should any of these situations occur. ;Take Back and Transfer / Transfer Connect / Agent Redirect: If a company uses an ACD to facilitate the transfer, the ACD will remain in the call as long as the parties are on the phone. The drawback is that this uses up trunk capacity on the ACD (or VRU). This is called by a number of names including hair-pinning or tromboning. IXCs have the capability to allow a company to answer a call, provide a level of service, and then transfer the call to another location. These IXC features provide a level of transferring that is different from what is available via the ACD. There is usually a feature charge associated with this offering. All of the above routing features are sometimes referred to as ''static routing'' features. These routes are put in place and are not usually changed. If changes are required, a customer usually has several options to make changes. A customer can call the IXC or an independent
RespOrg In the North American Numbering Plan, a RespOrg (a contraction for responsible organization) is a company that maintains the registration for individual toll-free telephone numbers in the distributed Service Management System/800 database. Their fun ...
directly via a special toll-free number to make changes, or a customer may be able to make changes through direct access to the network via a dedicated terminal provided by the IXC.


Assignment of NANP toll-free telephone numbers

Toll-free telephone numbers in the NANP are regulated by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 52 Section 101. RespOrgs assign the numbers in the SMS/800 database. SMS/800, Inc. administers this database as the Number Administration and Service Center, as a subcontractor for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The SMS/800 database and RespOrg structure are used in the U.S. and Canada. A few specific exchanges remain reserved or are assigned to specific North American Numbering Plan countries which do not draw numbers from the SMS/800 pool: * Some 800-xxx prefixes are reserved for the following areas: ** 800-389 for the
Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
** 800-534 for
Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
** 800-623 for
Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...
** 800-415, 800-751, and 800-907 for the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
** 800-271 for
Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
** 800-855 is reserved for services for deaf or hearing-impaired users; these TTY-related numbers, operated by individual telephone companies, are assigned directly by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA) * Several other prefixes, including 800-484, 800-703, 800-744, and 800-904 are reserved by the FCC. * 1-NPA-911 is forbidden as 9-1-1 is an
emergency telephone number Most public switched telephone networks have a single emergency telephone number (sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or the emergency services number) that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assista ...
. (This is less restrictive than the rules prohibiting all three-digit N-1-1 codes as exchanges in all geographic area codes.) * 1-NPA-555 is reserved in every toll-free area code (except 1–800) for future information or
directory assistance In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory inquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity. Technology Directory assistance systems incorporate ...
applications


References

{{Reflist Telecommunications in Bermuda Telecommunications in Canada Telecommunications in the Caribbean Telecommunications in the United States