bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
I remember when they were pretty useful back when there was long distance, and even back when many people used operator-assisted long distance. I thought it wasn't until the late 70s when we could make a direct long distance call in my area, and where we got charged by the minute for even calling a phone prefix that was maybe 12 miles away. But these days moving data is so cheap that everyone has a cell phone or POTS/VoIP where most have unlimited domestic long-distance or at least way more than will ever be used except for stuff like prepaid phone cards.
I still hear/see ads that feature toll-free numbers, but I'm not even sure it's for anything more than a demonstration that a company is trying to serve more than a small geographic region. I don't know if toll-free really means anything; I'm not even sure that the recipient has to pay for each call any more. It seems more for "vanity" these days given how almost anyone can call any domestic number and there's no additional cost compared to calling a local number.
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.
I still hear/see ads that feature toll-free numbers, but I'm not even sure it's for anything more than a demonstration that a company is trying to serve more than a small geographic region. I don't know if toll-free really means anything; I'm not even sure that the recipient has to pay for each call any more. It seems more for "vanity" these days given how almost anyone can call any domestic number and there's no additional cost compared to calling a local number.
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.