Posted on CommLawBlog on December 1, 2013 by Peter Tannenwald | | With toll free numbers fast running out, FCC declines to delay | roll out of new toll free code despite concerns about possible | abuses. | | If you've got your eye on a vanity toll free telephone number | you'd like to use - or if you might want to expand an existing | vanity number to include another toll free area code - listen | up: New toll free area code 844 is about to make its debut. | And now the FCC has announced how numbers in that area code | are going to be assigned. | | Last summer we wrote
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about the | new toll-free code, which is set to become available at noon | (ET) on December 7, 2013. At that point area code 844 will | join the ranks of 888, 877, 866, and 855, along with the | original toll-free 800 code. | | All toll free numbers are administered by SMS/800, Inc., which | oversees the toll free Service Management System for the North | American Numbering Plan. Entities known as "Responsible | Organizations" -- usually referred to simply as "RespOrgs" -- | can access the SMS/800 database and reserve particular | numbers. If a subscriber wants a particular toll free number, | it contacts a RespOrg, which in turn obtains the number for | that subscriber from the database. A RespOrg is not supposed | to reserve any number unless the RespOrg is doing so at the | specific request of a telephone subscriber.
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Neal McLain