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In the United States, both interexchange carriers (IXCs) such as Sprint, AT&T Inc., and Verizon, and Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) such as Verizon and AT&T offer toll-free services. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The way that a toll-free number is handled depends on whether it is a domestic or an interexchange call.
1800 numbers can also be found in Phonewords via an online auction. [23] For all types, the recipient business pays for incoming toll charges, either per call or at flat rates. [24] In some cases, 1800 numbers can be accessed from international lines. Callers to an 1800 number are not charged a connection fee from a domestic fixed line.
In December 1930, New York City became the first city in the United States to adopt the two-letter and five-number format (2L-5N), which became the standard after World War II, when the Bell System administration designed the North American Numbering Plan to prepare the United States and Canada for Direct Distance Dialing (DDD), and began to ...
In some countries, such as Canada and the United States, long-distance rates were historically kept artificially high to subsidize unprofitable flat-rate local residential services. [citation needed] Intense competition between long-distance telephone companies narrowed these gaps significantly in most developed nations in the late 20th century.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) divides the territories of its members into geographic numbering plan areas (NPAs). Each NPA is identified by one or more numbering plan area codes (NPA codes, or area codes), consisting of three digits that are prefixed to each local telephone number having seven digits.
The largest telephone numbering plan in North American is the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), serving 25 regions or countries. Other countries maintain an autonomous numbering plan with distinct country codes within the international E.164 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union.
The Government of Canada's Translation Bureau recommends using hyphens between groups; e.g. 250-555-0199. [4] Using the format specified by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Recommendation E.164 for telephone numbers, a Canadian number is written as +1NPANXXXXXX , with no spaces, hyphens, or other characters; e.g. +12505550199 .
The prefixes in the Americas start with one of 1,2,5. All countries in the Americas use codes that start with "5", with the exception of the countries of the North American Numbering Plan, such as Canada and the United States, which use country code 1, and Greenland and Aruba with country codes starting with the digit "2", which mostly is used by countries in Africa.