Talk:Toll-free telephone numbers in the North American Numbering Plan

Requested Move

Could this page be moved to "Toll-free telephone numbers in North America"? The article covers the NANP system of toll-free number assignment, which is used by all of North America (as is even explicitly stated in its first line). Admiral.Mercurial (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Explain zones in the main article?

I know how toll free zones were used in the 80s and up to the mid-90s only in the area where I used to work for the phone company, Northwestel, so I would not choose to cite that example in the article. If I could cite a more widely-recognized area, such as New York or Chicago, I would be willing to cite it. The area I know is northwestern Canada. With the offering starting in 1987 (three years after it became possible for Northwestel phone customers to dial 800 numbers down south), Northwestel began offering its own 800 service: Zone 1W was Yukon and northern B.C., while Zone 1E was the western NWT area (those portions of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut formerly serviced by area code 403). Zone 2 was both Zones 1W and 1E taken together by the customer. Zone 3 added Alberta, the remainder of British Columbia. Zone 4 added Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Zone 5 added Ontario. Zone 6 added Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces and the eastern NWT (those portions of Nunavut formerly serviced by area code 819). Although the 819 portions were added to the company's own area in 1992, it remained part of Zone 6 because of physical routing of calls and the unavailability of 800 service to customers there unless they could get Bell Canada 800 numbers in some manner. US 800 zones were added shortly after the introduction of the Canadian zones, and were based on three zones of states that fell within two circular mileage radii, and remaining states of the 48 (plus DC) falling in the third zone. Alaska was added through a separate agreement between Northwestel and Alascom. How this all changed later is unclear to me, but I know Northwestel did not join number pooling until around 2000 (give or take three years), when its services were transferred to Bell Canada platforms. Until that time, Northwestel had a small number of eight-digit number sets (e.g. 800-661-05) only it could use, being "lent" to it since 1987 by BC Tel and AGT, and a six-digit set "lent" to it by Alascom.

Without knowing, I can only speculate that, for example, AT&T would offer Chicago an in-state zone, a zone for the general area around, and another zone for the remaining conterminous states further afield. I would not be surprised if the advanced 800 service enables companies to request particularly-tailored areas they will accept calls from, either by state name, area code or LATA. GBC (talk) 23:07, 19 February 2017 (UTC)