Talk:Toll-free telephone number

Split?

This rightly has {{globalize/USA}} attached. But I'm made to wonder: Is the term "toll-free" in use anywhere outside the US? Here in the UK, for instance, we pay tolls to drive over certain roads and bridges, not to make phone calls.

You could argue that the article was only intended to cover the US side of things. The problem with this is that many titles, such as Freephone and 0800, now redirect here.

On this basis, I think this page ought to be split into two pages:

• a geographically neutral page dealing with the general concept of free-to-call phone numbers and summarising the forms they take in various countries, under a more geographically neutral name (Free telephone number? Free-to-call telephone number? Any better ideas?)
• a page to hold all the US-specific information currently here (Toll-free telephone numbers in the United States?)

-- Smjg (talk) 12:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree it is confusing for UK readers (although I don't know what conventions are used in other countries around the world). Clearly this isn't too hot a topic though given that the discussion was opened 6 months ago and mine is the first comment. I'll make a mental note to revisit this page in a couple of months and if there's no more discussion then I'll make the changes. In terms of page name, Free telephone number is OK. I'd also link Free phone number to there as well (note the deliberate space to distinguish between the brand name of freephone number). I'm interested in hearing whether freephone is a brand that's only used in the UK or does that term apply in the US as well? I only ask so that we know where to redirect freephone to after the split......

Also, the name of the US version of the article I would call simply Toll-free number if that is the only place where that description is used. ChrisUK (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find the brand name is Freefone rather than freephone. But you're right that it would be useful to find out what terms are used where in the world.

Most of the Google hits for "toll-free" seem to be US-based. Though peculiarly, there's a UK company International Tollfree which, even more confusingly, supplies free phone numbers in various countries, but apparently not the implied +800. So I'm not sure ... but if we're going to put the US article under such a vague title, we'd need a dablink. -- Smjg (talk) 23:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me if I haven't edited this correctly, as I am new to this. The item on this page that suggests toll-free or "freephone" calls are "free" in the UK is incorrect. Most telephone packages that provide a unlimited calls, or a number of free minutes (both landline and mobile phones) actually charge the call initiators for these calls. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.59.229 (talk) 05:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Calls normally are charged to the initiator. And what have free minutes provided by phone operators to do with this whatsoever? -- Smjg (talk) 00:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I see your confusion Smjg, it's completely reasonable to think that free minutes are irrelevant, however unfortunately here in the UK, they are not quite unrelated. This is because mobile (cell) companies and a few landline companies will offer free minutes to normal numbers for a fixed monthly fee but bizarrely will then charge for "freephone" numbers. I completely agree with splitting this article, it's very heavily biased towards the US at the moment. I'd like to see the current page changed to a "did you mean" type page offering a US-centric page Toll-free telephone numbers in the United States - I think it's important that this name includes "United States" and a non-US specific page called Free telephone numbers - this should include a link to the US version. Is Freephone really a trade name?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.39.106.103 (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Split declined. Article needs some attention, but creating two articles because of a slight difference in language between UK and USA is not Wikipedia policy. The concept of toll-free telephone number is the same regardless of dialect, and the name of this article is easily understood in British English. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 23:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've just re-read my original comment and realised that I made a sudden change of subject between the first paragraph and the rest. My split proposal wasn't about the difference in terminology. I proposed it because there was, at the time, sufficient US-specific detail here to warrant moving it to a separate article.

In any case, I would still like a decision to be reached on a non-US-specific title to move this page to. See MOS:COMMONALITY. — Smjg (talk) 13:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

8YY

I was reading a proposal by the CPUC that referred to "8YY" which the document defined as "800 or 800-like ... toll-free services". Is that a generally used term that should be added to the article? The "8YY" use is on page 5 of this proposal for basic telephone service revisions. --Elijah (talk) 01:01, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hungary

I think Hungary's freephone prefix should be listed as 0680. Technically, the area code is 80, but there's no way to call a freephone number without the 06 part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.133.44.194 (talk) 11:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Inventor?

How comes Lester Wunderman isn't mentioned in this article? To some, he's the inventor of the toll-free number. And at least, he made it big. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.199.83.129 (talk) 08:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)