Are toll-free numbers still needed?

[LYSE]

Alot of Pots plans still charge for long distance and what would the alternative be? Advertising numbers with specific area codes?

 

[chartle]

I hadn't thought about that. Since they are paying for the call, by dialing an 800 you are giving them your phone number even if your number if blocked. I don't give our my cell phone number.

Yes they have your number but I don't think its easy to get to. Back when I used to handle our 800 number at an old job its on the bill with a time and date but not anything that's easily matched to say an order or an inquiry. But that was years ago.

 

[bcla]

Eventually perhaps they go away completely but I don't even want to imagine how intensive it would be to convert all the toll free numbers out. Look at chip-cards and how long it's taking both to get them to the customer and for all business to accept them.

It wasn’t necessarily that I thought that the numbering system would go away, but does the whole toll free system need to exist with fewer and fewer people limited in who they can call essentially at no extra charge other than for their flat rate service fee. It’s certainly easy enough to get an unlimited long distance plan (even with POTS) these days since the actual cost of a connection is minuscule given that it can be sent as a tiny bit of bits in a sea of digital data.

One of the lessons of last week's tragic fires in Santa Rosa was that the cell phone infrastructure is far more fragile than landline. Makes sense, in many communities landlines are all buried where they are less likely to be damaged by fire. Not so sure about floods.

Burying comes with its own issues. One house I lived in had no overhead lines in the neighborhood. A few times it rained hard and our power went out. I think our phones went out too. There can be times when a line gets damaged by someone digging in a backyard. Some neighborhoods have completely switched over to fiber, which is a lot easier to build in redundancies but needs the nodes to be powered.

 

[bcla]

Yes they have your number but I don't think its easy to get to. Back when I used to handle our 800 number at an old job its on the bill with a time and date but not anything that's easily matched to say an order or an inquiry. But that was years ago.

Nearly all modern business phones have real time caller ID these days.

 

[sam_gordon]

To answer your question, no they're not "needed". They were never "needed". Businesses elected to get them to make things "easier" on their customers. Businesses can choose whether to keep them or not. I'm guessing they keep them now for the reasons mentioned... the 800 number is recognized, the 800 number spells something out making it easier to remember, the 800 number is printed on enough items it would cost more to change, it's perception issue that it's a "free" call. So until businesses decide they don't want 800 numbers anymore, the phone companies are going to provide them.

 

[bcla]

To answer your question, no they're not "needed". They were never "needed". Businesses elected to get them to make things "easier" on their customers. Businesses can choose whether to keep them or not. I'm guessing they keep them now for the reasons mentioned... the 800 number is recognized, the 800 number spells something out making it easier to remember, the 800 number is printed on enough items it would cost more to change, it's perception issue that it's a "free" call. So until businesses decide they don't want 800 numbers anymore, the phone companies are going to provide them.

Well - I acknowledged that the numbers would probably remain and could be useful as a non-geographic phone number. However, I was wondering if the whole "toll-free" aspect of the system was still needed given that most (but of course not all) customers these days would have access to some sort of unlimited or practically unlimited long-distance phone setup. I've switched over my POTS line to VoIP with unlimited domestic calling and our cell phone plans come with unlimited domestic calls (and a pretty good plan in Canada). Even a few years ago having 1000 cell phone minutes per month was enough that I never burned through it. (Addendum) And even a call through a toll-free number went through my minutes the same as calling a number in Florida.

 

[sam_gordon]

Well - I acknowledged that the numbers would probably remain and could be useful as a non-geographic phone number. However, I was wondering if the whole "toll-free" aspect of the system was still needed given that most (but of course not all) customers these days would have access to some sort of unlimited or practically unlimited long-distance phone setup. I've switched over my POTS line to VoIP with unlimited domestic calling and our cell phone plans come with unlimited domestic calls (and a pretty good plan in Canada). Even a few years ago having 1000 cell phone minutes per month was enough that I never burned through it.

I don't understand your question. The phone companies always charged for the calls, the difference is they charged the recipient instead of the caller. It's only "toll free" to the caller. So what are you trying to propose get eliminated? The charge itself? Go ahead, tell a phone company they shouldn't charge for a product.

 

[bcla]

I don't understand your question. The phone companies always charged for the calls, the difference is they charged the recipient instead of the caller. It's only "toll free" to the caller. So what are you trying to propose get eliminated? The charge itself? Go ahead, tell a phone company they shouldn't charge for a product.

I'm just wondering if maybe the whole system where the recipient pays (even if it's not much) to receive a call is outdated. I was thinking that it didn't need to be any different a pricing model as someone with a phone number in Georgia. Right now I call a toll-free number that could be anywhere or a regular phone number in Florida and it doesn't cost me anything since I already have unlimited domestic service. Even back when I had limited minutes, one minute of a call to a toll free number meant one minute debited from my available minutes for that month the same as long-distance call.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm just wondering if maybe the whole system where the recipient pays (even if it's not much) to receive a call is outdated. I was thinking that it didn't need to be any different a pricing model as someone with a phone number in Georgia. Right now I call a toll-free number that could be anywhere or a regular phone number in Florida and it doesn't cost me anything since I already have unlimited domestic service. Even back when I had limited minutes, one minute of a call to a toll free number meant one minute debited from my available minutes for that month the same as long-distance call.

So are you proposing phone companies don't need to charge for 800 numbers? That companies don't promote their 800 numbers?

I don't think companies that cater to the general public should charge for wifi internet access (hotels immediately come to mind).

 

[bcla]

So are you proposing phone companies don't need to charge for 800 numbers? That companies don't promote their 800 numbers?

I don't think companies that cater to the general public should charge for wifi internet access (hotels immediately come to mind).

I'm kind of proposing that 800 numbers might revert to the same operational model that people use for regular phone lines. Obviously it's still costing them to receive calls, even if the caller wouldn't otherwise pay extra for it as a local number.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm kind of proposing that 800 numbers might revert to the same operational model that people use for regular phone lines. Obviously it's still costing them to receive calls, even if the caller wouldn't otherwise pay extra for it as a local number.

And you know they're not because... ?

You do know the 800 number you dial is automatically redirected to a "normal" number, right? So maybe the phone company charges for that service.

 

[bcla]

And you know they're not because... ?

You do know the 800 number you dial is automatically redirected to a "normal" number, right? So maybe the phone company charges for that service.

I thought that it's more complicated than that these days. I've received calls that indicate that they're from a toll-free "area" code and aren't marked as being from a specific area.

 

[tvguy]

Nearly all modern business phones have real time caller ID these days.

Yes. And when people call our 800 number it shows their number. When they dial our regular number it says "anonymous"

 

[wonder whisper]

I do remember hearing stuff about the golden era of 800 numbers during the 80s, back when the recipient might be paying $1/minute. The craziest story I remember was a someone who was really upset at a company for some reason or another. So he set up some electronics to automatically call this company's 800 number and hang up twice a minute. The company went to court to try and get a restraining order ordering him not to call, because it was costing them a lot of money.[/QUOTE]

And the golden era for driving junk mail companies crazy was back when their mailings included postage paid return envelopes to entice you to order or had similar forms on cards that you could pull out of magazines.

The fun part was taking the postage paid envelope or card and taping it a box that you had packed a cinder block inside. You could actually then drop it off at the post office (with a phony return address on the package) and the postal service would deliver it to the addressee.

The recipient companies absolutely hated getting the bill.

 

[bcla]

And the golden era for driving junk mail companies crazy was back when their mailings included postage paid return envelopes to entice you to order or had similar forms on cards that you could pull out of magazines.

The fun part was taking the postage paid envelope or card and taping it a box that you had packed a cinder block inside. You could actually then drop it off at the post office (with a phony return address on the package) and the postal service would deliver it to the addressee.

The recipient companies absolutely hated getting the bill.

Was that even legal? I do remember business reply labels, but I though they would have needed to have a parcel return label in order to send anything more than a certain weight. I remember they tended to come out of magazines for trial subscription offers, but I think it was possible to just drop them in a mailbox without filling them out.

 

[kimblebee]

Was that even legal? I do remember business reply labels, but I though they would have needed to have a parcel return label in order to send anything more than a certain weight. I remember they tended to come out of magazines for trial subscription offers, but I think it was possible to just drop them in a mailbox without filling them out.

My guess is that it’s an urban legend. It takes two seconds to recycle junk mail. Who know how long it takes to find a box, find a brick, tape it all up, drive to a mailbox and drop it in.

(Please don’t google me an answer..I just skip past it)

 

[bcla]

My guess is that it’s an urban legend. It takes two seconds to recycle junk mail. Who know how long it takes to find a box, find a brick, tape it all up, drive to a mailbox and drop it in.

Never really heard of that myself before this thread. The closest thing I remember was reading about someone who needed to send building materials to some remote location in Alaska. So he figured out that he could send it USPS first class mail. He sized each concrete block to be less than the maximum first-class weight and then pasted a label on each one along with postage. It wasn't cheap, but the actual cost to transport them was something like five times the total postage. The USPS had to charter several planes to send the blocks, and from that the USPS took something like a $150,000 loss on it. I thought maybe it was the impetus for a law that allowed the USPS to place limits on sending stuff where the USPS would be taking a huge loss.