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Toll-free directory assistance was provided by telecommunication providers, namely AT&T and Verizon, as mandated by the Federal Communications Commission. 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 the early 1980s, Bell Labs 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.
Callers dial 1-800 (888 or 866)-FREE411 [373-3411] from any phone in the United States to use the toll-free service. Sponsors cover part of the service cost by playing advertising messages during the call. Callers always hear an ad at the beginning of the call, and then another after they have made their request.
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 prefix similar to an area code. The specific service access varies by country.
With "inward WATS", introduced for interstate calls by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1967, subscribers were issued a toll-free telephone number in a designated toll-free area code. Unlike a standard collect call or a call to a Zenith number, 1‑800 normally may be dialed directly with no live operator. Callers within a ...
The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) first introduced 800 toll-free service in 1967. [2] When AT&T was the only Interexchange carrier, local exchange carriers automatically routed all toll-free calls directly to an AT&T point of presence without performing a translation from the toll-free number to the terminating telephone number. [3]
411 is a telephone number for local directory assistance in Canada and the United States. Until the early 1980s, 411 – and the related 113 number – were free to call in most jurisdictions. In the United States, the service is commonly known as "information", [1] although its official name is "directory assistance". [2]
The Home Country Direct number is usually a domestic toll-free number, and is specific to the pairing of originating and receiving countries. The first such services were established in the early 1980s by AT&T as "USA Direct"; reciprocal services from the United States were later established, and other countries also established the services ...