telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

, a personal communications service is defined by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) as "a set of capabilities that allows some combination of personal mobility, terminal mobility, and service profile management". Personal communications services use a special non-geographic

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 ...

of the format ''5XX'' for assigning

telephone number A telephone number is the address of a Telecommunications, telecommunication endpoint, such as a telephone, in a telephone network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A telephone number typically consists of a Number, sequ ...

s for service instances. The designation of the 5XX area code format was authorized by the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

, and introduced into the

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 ...

in 1995.

United States

In 1993, the North American Numbering Plan designated area code 500 for personal communication services. An initial service concept was that customers could move a given seven-digit telephone number when relocating between numbering plan areas. The 500-code would thus be a non-geographic area code. In 1995,

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

introduced a "follow-me" service under the brand name of ''AT&T True Connections'' using area code 500. It was designed to replace the '' AT&T EasyReach 700'' service. Other

local exchange carrier Local exchange carrier (LEC) is a regulatory term in telecommunications for the local telephone company. In the United States, wireline telephone companies are divided into two large categories: long-distance ( interexchange carrier, or IXCs) ...

s and interexchange carriers introduced similar competitive services. With the rise of mobile devices such as mobile phones and pagers, making the service all but superfluous, AT&T True Connections and their competitors failed quickly. Companies, hotels, and others with PBX equipment continued to block the dialing of 500 because it was a caller-paid number. It was also misused by premium rate services such as

phone sex Phone sex is a conversation between two or more people by means of the telephone which is sexually explicit and is intended to provoke sexual arousal in one or more participants. As a practice between individuals temporarily separated, it is as ...

lines, with it being used to forward calls to various foreign countries. The prefix was also used by some

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

s to allow non-subscribers to dial into their systems for

dial-up Internet access Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

. In 1996,

attempted to migrate users to its revised service called "Personal Reach" 800, built on a toll-free (receiver-paid) platform rather than the original (caller-paid) 500 program. AT&T has a US patent (5,907,811) on "personal reach service". AT&T then licensed and transferred all personal reach services to MCE, Inc. MCE was supposedly the company providing the back-end system for all personal reach services to AT&T. No public information was released on the transfer away from AT&T. Subscribers were notified by mail that bills would begin to arrive from MCE instead of AT&T. It is also believed that MCE is a subsidiary of EMNS, Inc., a web hosting company in Chicago. MCE continues to supply personal reach service using the AT&T transport network. AT&T discontinued AT&T True Connections in 2000, following the

approval of its

tariff A tariff or import tax is a duty (tax), duty imposed by a national Government, government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods ...

to cease providing the service. The numbering resources are now designated 5XX-NXX in NANP and are used for

machine to machine Machine to machine (M2M) is direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired communication, wired and wireless. Machine to machine communication can include industrial instrumentation, enabling a sensor or met ...

communication. Although AT&T no longer uses the 500 code, it was supplemented by 533 in 2009, followed by 544 in December 2010. The 566 code was activated in April 2012. In March 2014, the 577 code was also activated. In September 2015 the 588 code was activated. In August 2016 the 522 code was activated. In September 2017 the 521 code was activated. In November 2018 the 523 code was activated. In September 2019 the 524 code was activated. In July 2020 the 525 code was activated. In January 2021 the 526 code was activated. Other codes in reserve for this use: 527, 528, 529, 532, 535, 538, 542, 543, 545, 546, 547, 549, 550, 552, 553, 554, 556, 558, 569, 578, and 589. On February 11, 2022, 103 of the 5XX-NXX codes were reported as available for assignment and the code 528 was designated as the next NPA code to be assigned. On March 2, 2022, the NANPA announced the initiation of NPA 528. On August 29, 2022, 193 of the 5XX-NXX codes were reported as available for assignment and the code 529 was designated as the next NPA code to be assigned. On September 16, 2022, the NANPA announced the initiation of NPA 529. 2024: NPA 532 activated

Canada

In 2015, the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(CRTC) approved the Canadian Non-Geographic Code Assignment Guideline and the assignment of the 622, 633, 644, 655, 677, and 688 non-geographic numbering plan area (NPA) codes to meet the demand for telephone numbers related to technologies such as machine-to-machine applications. The first 6YY NPA to be used is 622 NPA, with additional numbers requested when 622 approaches exhaustion.

References

External links

United States

Canada

See also

References

External links