> On Apr 13, 2016, at 12:15 , John Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote: > >>> Actually, it's probably both US and Canadian. When you call an 8xx >>> toll free number, the switch uses a database to route the call to >>> whatever carrier handles it, who can then do whatever they want. The >>> provider for that number, Callture, is in Ontario but they can >>> terminate the calls anywhere, and send each call to a different place. >> >> I was careful to pick a number on a Canadian company's website. > > Doesn't matter. In the NANP, toll free 8xx numbers are routed by > carrier, not by geography, and it looks like this company handles > traffic in the US, too. It's entirely possible that when you call > that number during the day you get someone in Toronto, and when you > call it at night, you get an answering service in the Phillipines. > >>> Also, in fairness, the US is about 90% of the NANP, so guessing that >>> an 8XX number is in the US is usually correct. >> >> That's another way of saying that it's deliberately wrong 10% of the >> time for pan-NANP prefixes. Better to say "I don't know" than to just >> guess. > > Really, they're not assigned to locations, they're assigned to > carriers. They can even be assigned to different carriers in > different countries although that's not common. > > More to the point, saying "somewhere in the US", even if it's > occasionally wrong, will not send nitwits with guns to a particular > location. NANP geographical numbers can be located to a switch (give > or take number portability within a LATA), but non-geographic numbers > can really go anywhere. On the third hand, it's still true that the > large majority of them are in the U.S.
Would you agree that 408-921 is a geographic number? I guarantee you that there are phones within that prefix within US/Calif/LATA-1 and also some well outside of that, probably not even in the same country. I will also guarantee you that those phones move locations quite frequently. Owen
