Dear Lisa posted:
> Someone on the railroad newsgroup said Enterprise numbers are still
> in use. (Enterprise numbers were manually reached through the
> operator and served as toll-free lines prior to 800 direct dialed
> service. The operator had a table in which she converted the
> Enterprise number to an actual telephone number and placed the call,
> billing the recipient.)
> I don't think he's correct.
Then she quoted:
> They are still in use, yes. Their purpose is different from 800
> numbers, as it gave the called party the ability to restrict incoming
> calls to selected areas of his choosing, areas as small as a single
> exchange. That's never been available with 800 numbers.
What I wish to correct him on is the "selected areas of his choosing"
commit. That is not correct with 800 (toll free) numbers they can be
assigned to any type of customer (800 number owner/user) needs. They
can be set to work in a central office, many offices. Limit calls from
one state from coming in or set it so only calls from a single state
can come in. If the customer wants to be able to receive a call from,
let us say for example all of southeast Michigan but not the western
suburbs of Detroit it can be set up that way. Now this isn't a perfect
solution due to maybe a few parts of those western suburbs may be
served by a end off in Detroit and the customer wants more then
anything to get those Detroit calls they will either have to deal with
it or exclude the western Detroit calls. Each code (800-NXX) only has
to do what the customer wants. Even let us say the customer does want
the western Detroit suburb calls but would rather have them go to a
different service center, that as well can be accomplished. Now at one
time the great originator of toll free service (AT&T) didn't want to
do it and so there was a time that these types of toll free routing
wasn't available but to say never is just plan wrong.
Chip Cryderman
Charles Cryderman (Charles.Cryderman@globalcrossing.com)