ISTR +1-888-xxxx being the international equivalent of 1-800-xxxx
Close, but no. The prefixes for international "caller pays" calls to US toll free numbers are: US Int'l (800) xxx-xxxx -> +1 880 xxx xxxx (888) xxx-xxxx -> +1 881 xxx xxxx (877) xxx-xxxx -> +1 882 xxx xxxx It is my impression that the implementation of these numbers depend on a lot of complicated telco stuff, and you can't reliably expect them to work everywhere. Remember that the US has many long distance companies, and each toll-free number is individually routed to the carrier that handles it, meaning that someone has to do a database dip to route these calls to the appropriate carrier once they reach the US. It's not like normal numbers where every LD company can deliver any call. So I agree, any NOC or anyone else who expects to be reachable from all over the world needs to have a regular old phone number. For companies that have some internal phone magic to route their 800 number that they want to use for all their calls, it would be quite adequate to have a POTS number somewhere in the US that is call-forwarded to the 800 number, since that call-forward is invisible to the caller. -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail