In telephony, the term local call has the following meanings:
- Any call using a single switching center; that is, not traveling to another telephone network;
- A call made within a local calling area as defined by the local exchange carrier;
- Any call for which an additional charge, i.e., toll charge, is not billed to the calling or called party, or for which this charge is reduced because it is a short-distance call.
Local exchange carrier (LEC) is a regulatory term in telecommunications for the local telephone company.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934. The Act, signed by President Bill Clinton, represented a major change in American telecommunication law, since it was the first time that the Internet was included in broadcasting and spectrum allotment.
Interexchange carrier (IXC) is a U.S. legal and regulatory term for a telecommunication company, commonly called a long-distance telephone company. It is defined as any carrier that provides services across multiple local access and transport areas (interLATA). Calls made on telephone circuits within the local geographic area covered by one local network are handled only by that intraLATA carrier, commonly called a local telephone exchange carrier. Local calls are usually defined by connections made without additional charge whether the connected call is in the same LATA or connects to another LATA with no charge. IntraLATA usually refers to rated or toll calls between LATA within state boundaries, as opposed to interstate, or calls between LATAs in different states.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for World Zone 1, which comprises twenty-five distinct regions in twenty countries primarily in North America, including the Caribbean. Some North American countries, most notably Mexico, do not participate in the NANP.
A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC).
This is a list of dialing codes in Greece. The first digit represents the type of service. 1 is used for short codes, 2 for geographical numbers, 5 is used for inter-network routing purposes and VPNs, 6 for mobile services, 7 is reserved for universal access numbers, 8 for reduced-fee services, 9 is used for premium rate services. All dialable numbers are ten digits, except for short codes, 807-XXXX used for calling card access codes, and numbers in the 5 range, used for routing purposes and not dialable by end-subscribers.
A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls instead of incurring charges to the originating telephone subscriber. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge.
In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory enquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
An access network is a type of telecommunications network which connects subscribers to their immediate service provider. It is contrasted with the core network, which connects local providers to one another. The access network may be further divided between feeder plant or distribution network, and drop plant or edge network.
In telecommunications, a long-distance call (U.S.) or trunk call is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are typically charged a higher billing rate than local calls. The term is not necessarily synonymous with placing calls to another telephone area code.
Area code 246 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Barbados. Telecommunication services in Barbados are regulated by the Government of Barbados's telecommunications unit. The number 246 spells BIM on an alpha-numeric telephone keypad, a nickname for the island.
Telephone companies in different countries use a variety of international telecoms routes to send traffic to each other. These can be legal routes or other arrangements the industry calls grey routes, special carrier arrangements, settlement by-pass and other euphemisms.
The New Zealand telephone numbering plan describes the allocation of telephone numbers in New Zealand and the Pitcairn Islands.
Extended area service (EAS) is a telephony term that deals with calling a wider area beyond the exchange without long distance or toll charges.
The line information database (LIDB) is a collection of commercial databases used in the United States and Canada by telephone companies to store and retrieve Calling Name Presentation (CNAM) data used for caller ID services. In Canada, it is common for the client to apply their own Caller ID information, and this is allowed, provided the regulations regarding spoofing and fraud are not violated. The databases map telephone numbers to 15-character strings of caller names. Class 5 telephone switches, which provide end-office services in exchange areas, use the Signaling System 7 (SS7) signaling protocol to query the database.
An independent telephone company was a telephone company providing local service in the United States or Canada that was not part of the Bell System organized by American Telephone and Telegraph. Independent telephone companies usually operated in many rural or sparsely populated areas.
In the United States of America, Canada, and other countries participating in the North American Numbering Plan, a toll-free telephone number has one of the area codes 800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, and 888.
In the North American Numbering Plan, a rate center is a geographically-specified area used for determining mileage and/or usage dependent rates in the public switched telephone network.
