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Operator Assistance
Operator assistance refers to service provided by a telephone operator to the calling party of a telephone call. This can include telephone calls made from pay phones, calls placed ''station-to-station'', ''person-to-person'', or ''collect'', third-number calls, calls billed to credit cards, and certain international calls which cannot be dialed directly. The telephone operator may also be able to assist with determining what kind of technical difficulties are occurring on a phone line, to verify whether a line is busy (''busy line verification'', or ''BLV''), or left off the hook, or to break in on a live call to ask the caller to clear the line for an incoming call ('' busy line interruption'', or ''BLI''). The latter service is often utilized by emergency police. In addition, operators are often a first point of contact for the elderly wanting information on the current date and time. Before the advent of emergency telephone numbers, operators identified and connected emerg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing. Description A typical manual telephone switchboard has a vertical panel containing an array of jacks with a desk in front. The desk has a row of switches and two rows of plugs attached to cables that retract into the desk when not in use. Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the operator participate in the call or ring the circuit for an incoming call. Each jack had a light above it that lit when the customer's telephone receiver was lifted (the earliest systems required the customer to hand-crank a magneto to alert the central office and, later, to "ring off" the completed ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Call
In telephony, the term local call has the following meanings: # Any call using a single switching center; that is, not traveling to another telephone network; # A call made within a local calling area as defined by the local exchange carrier; # Any call for which an additional charge, ''i.e.'', toll charge, is not billed to the calling or called party, or (depending on the country) for which this charge is reduced because it is a short-distance call (e.g. within a town or local metropolitan area). Typically, local calls have shorter numbers than long-distance calls, as the area code may not be required. However, this is not true in parts of the United States and Canada that are subject to overlay plans or many countries in Europe that require closed dialing plans. Toll free 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 is free of charge, unless air-charges appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long-distance 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 systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing. Description A typical manual telephone switchboard has a vertical panel containing an array of jacks with a desk in front. The desk has a row of switches and two rows of plugs attached to cables that retract into the desk when not in use. Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the operator participate in the call or ring the circuit for an incoming call. Each jack had a light above it that lit when the customer's telephone receiver was lifted (the earliest systems required the customer to hand-crank a magneto to alert the central office and, later, to "ring off" the completed call ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American Numbering Plan
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated 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, World Numbering Zone 1 and has the telephone country code, country code ''1''. Some North American countries, most notably Telephone numbers in Mexico, Mexico, do not participate in the NANP. The concepts of the NANP were devised originally during the 1940s by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) for the Bell System and the independent telephone companies in North America in Operator Toll Dialing. The first task was to unify the diverse local telephone numbering plans that had been established during the preceding decades, with the goal to speed call completion times and decrease the costs for long-distance calling, by reducing manual labor by switchboard operators. Eventually, it prepared the continent for direct-dialing of long-distance calls ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conference Call
A conference call (sometimes called an audio teleconference or ATC) is a telephone call in which several people share a telephone line at the same time. The conference call may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the call or set up so that the called party merely listens into the call and cannot speak. The more limited three-way calling is available (usually at an extra charge) on home or office phone lines. For a three-way call, the first called party is dialed. Then the hook flash button (or recall button) is pressed and the other called party's phone number is dialed. While it is ringing, flash/recall is pressed again to connect the three people together. This option allows callers to add a second outgoing call to an already connected call. Features Conference calls can be designed so that the calling party calls the other participants and adds them to the call; however, participants are usually able to call into the conference call themselves by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cell Phones
A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive Telephone call, calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones (landline phones). This radio frequency link connects to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, providing access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephony relies on a cellular network architecture, which is why mobile phones are often referred to as 'cell phones' in North America. Beyond traditional Voice call, voice communication, digital mobile phones have evolved to support a wide range of additional services. These include text messaging, Multimedia Messaging Service, multimedia messaging, email, and internet access (via LTE (telecommunication), LTE, 5G NR or Wi-Fi), as well as short-range wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Infrared Data Association, infrared, and ultra-wideband (UWB). Mobile phones also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Distance Telephone Call
In telecommunications, a long-distance call (U.S.) or trunk call (also known as a toll call in the UK ) is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are typically charged a higher billing rate than local calls. The term is not necessarily synonymous with placing calls to another telephone area code. Long-distance calls are classified into two categories: national or domestic calls which connect two points within the same country, and international calls which connect two points in different countries. Within the United States there is a further division into long-distance calls within a single state (intrastate) and interstate calls, which are subject to different regulations (counter-intuitively, calls within states are usually more expensive than interstate calls). Not all interstate calls are long-distance calls. Since 1984 there has also been a distinction between intra- local access and transport area (LATA) calls and those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Distance Dialing
Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunications service in North America by which a caller may call any other subscriber outside the local calling area without operator assistance, DDD was introduced in the United States in 1951, on a trial basis, with service from Englewood, New Jersey. Direct long-distance dialing by subscribers requires extra digits, called an area code, to be dialed as prefixes to the directory telephone number of the destination. International Direct Distance Dialing (IDDD) extends the system beyond the geographic boundaries of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). History The first direct-dialed long-distance telephone calls were possible in the New Jersey communities of Englewood and Teaneck. Customers of the ENglewood 3, ENglewood 4 and TEaneck 7 exchanges, who could already dial telephone numbers in the New York City area, could place calls to eleven major cities across the United States by dialing the three-digit area code and the seven-di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until United States v. AT&T (1982), its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell (as in "Mother Bell"), as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) and employed over one million people. Beginning in the 1910s, American antitrust regulators had been observing and accusing the Bell System of abusing its monopoly power, and had brought legal action multiple times over the decades. In 1974 the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Anti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Distance Dialing
Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunications service in North America by which a caller may call any other subscriber outside the local calling area without operator assistance, DDD was introduced in the United States in 1951, on a trial basis, with service from Englewood, New Jersey. Direct long-distance dialing by subscribers requires extra digits, called an area code, to be dialed as prefixes to the directory telephone number of the destination. International Direct Distance Dialing (IDDD) extends the system beyond the geographic boundaries of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). History The first direct-dialed long-distance telephone calls were possible in the New Jersey communities of Englewood and Teaneck. Customers of the ENglewood 3, ENglewood 4 and TEaneck 7 exchanges, who could already dial telephone numbers in the New York City area, could place calls to eleven major cities across the United States by dialing the three-digit area code and the seven-di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long-distance Calling
In telecommunications, a long-distance call (U.S.) or trunk call (also known as a toll call in the UK ) is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are typically charged a higher billing rate than local calls. The term is not necessarily synonymous with placing calls to another telephone area code. Long-distance calls are classified into two categories: national or domestic calls which connect two points within the same country, and international calls which connect two points in different countries. Within the United States there is a further division into long-distance calls within a single state (intrastate) and interstate calls, which are subject to different regulations (counter-intuitively, calls within states are usually more expensive than interstate calls). Not all interstate calls are long-distance calls. Since 1984 there has also been a distinction between intra- local access and transport area (LATA) calls and those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 a wide range of automation to reduce the cost of human operators. Almost all systems use custom database software to locate listings quickly. Most directory assistance systems use automated readback systems to give out the phone number. This frees the directory assistance operator to move on to another caller as soon as the correct listing is located. Some systems have "store and forward" technology which records the city and state the caller is requesting; it then plays the recording to the operator before they answer and ask the caller to further specify. Interactive voice response systems have been added to many directory assistance systems. These complex systems use speech recognition and recorded speech or speech synthesis to handl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
