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In 1997, the FCC broadened the scope of the program under the 1997 Universal Service Order to make Lifeline more affordable for low-income households by raising the federal support amount. [14] Due to the rise of cell phones, the FCC made more changes in 2005 so that wireless phone service providers could offer free cell phone service using ...
A call to an 1800 is free when dialled from a landline, and mobile phones since 2014. [16] It depends on the individual mobile plan as how 13 and 1300 numbers are charged: all plans no longer charge for 1800 but 13 and 1300 may still be charged at a high rate, or outside included calls. These numbers "forward" to a geographic or mobile number.
Call forwarding, or call diversion, is a telephony feature of all telephone switching systems which redirects a telephone call to another destination, which may be, for example, a mobile or another telephone number where the desired called party is available. Call forwarding was invented by Ernest J. Bonanno.
Remote call forwarding is also a means for a suburban business to obtain a city-centre local number (with its full large-city coverage area) for inbound calls; while cheaper than a foreign exchange line, this can reduce long-distance telephony costs in markets where local calls are flat-rated but trunk calls are expensive.
In 2021, Telstra made its pay phones free so that they can be used in emergencies for when mobile phones are out of service due fire, flood, storms, flat batteries, no nearby mobile tower, etc. declining use would have meant that the cost of collection exceeded the revenue anyhow; for the benefit of people without a mobile phone; good publicity
Delivering competitive telecommunications services to regional and rural areas is a major issue, with Telstra having a Universal Service Obligation regarding telephony services. Government monies have been made available on a competitive basis to carriers to address broadband and mobile telephone blackspots and gaps in service provision.
Telstra chose to artificially limit all ADSL speeds to a maximum of 1500/256 kbit/s. As ADSL required access to the telephone exchange and the copper line – which only Telstra had – this allowed Telstra to be dominant due to the expense of roll-out for other companies and Telstra's established customer base.
Companies requested to have their toll-free number listed, and paid the providers each time their phone number was released to a toll-free directory-assistance caller. In 1999, AT&T applied for permission to discontinue this service, [ 2 ] but it remained active until the summer of 2020.