With the rise of the internet and the increasing ease of telecommunications, you might assume that one thing that has been standardized throughout the world is phone numbers. Your assumptions would be wrong!
The structure of phone numbers throughout the world varies a great deal.
Within a single country, even the length of phone numbers can vary.
In the United States, Canada and several other North American countries, three-digit area codes are used.
Sometimes, you can get a little information about an area code although this is not as straightforward as it used to be.
Keep reading to learn more about the meaning of area code 877.
What is the meaning of “area code 877”?
Area code 877 is the prefix that indicates that a number is toll-free. It is not tied to a specific location but can be used in any country or territory that is part of the North American Numbering Plan, including the United States, Canada and a number of Caribbean countries.
Area Codes in a nutshell
An area code is part of a telephone numbering plan that helps route phone traffic more efficiently.
In the area where the North American Numbering Plan is in use, most phone numbers are seven digits long.
Since there is a finite amount of seven-digit numbers, the area code allow multiple seven-digit numbers within that geographical area.
The area code ensures that the number in the right area is dialed.
Area codes in the North American Numbering Plan are three digits long. In other parts of the world, they have varying lengths.
Traditionally, area codes were tied to a specific area.
Area codes have become a lot more complicated as the use of landlines has declined and mobile phone usage has increased.
Nowadays, since people often move but keep the same cell phone number, you don’t really know where a person is calling from.
All you can really tell is where that cell phone number originated!
However, most area codes in the North American Numbering Plan do correspond to a specific region even if they no longer necessarily indicate that the actual phone is in that region.
The exception is some 800 area codes. These can be located anywhere.
These area codes were designed to be toll-free in the days when everyone used landlines.
When charges for calling long-distance were very high, these could be used at no charge to the caller.
More about the 877 area code
There are a total of seven toll-free area codes: 800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877 and 888.
Several others have been set aside as toll-free numbers for the future.
In the past, calling outside your area code from your landline could be very expensive.
Therefore, businesses traditionally had toll-free numbers that their customers could call without incurring extra expenses.
It used to be costly for a business to purchase a toll-free number, so only large businesses had them.
Today, they are much more affordable, so a small or even one-person business might have a toll-free number.
That number might actually belong to someone using a VoIP instead of a landline or even a physical cell phone instead of a big phone system in an office.
The internet and cell phones have profoundly changed the landscape of telecommunications.
Toll-free numbers should still be free if you call them from your landline.
However, if you call them from your cell phone, there might be a charge. This depends on what the number is and what rules your carrier has.
Examples of numbers with 877 area codes
There are essentially two types of toll-free numbers you can get.
Some are fairly straightforward. They are just the area code followed by a regular seven-digit phone number:
877-555-3139
However, there is another type of toll-free number you may often see associated with businesses.
This is known as a “vanity number,” and these numbers use the letters included on a phone’s number pad to spell out the name of a business or something associated with the business.
This can be a great marketing tool for companies.
It can also make it very easy for their customers to remember their number in case they need to contact them.
Here are two examples of well-known companies that have their name as part of their phone number:
1-800-CALL-ATT
1-800-GO-FEDEX
Companies might also use vanity numbers that contain the name of whatever it is they specialize in. For example, the company Movies Unlimited, which sells movies online for collectors, uses 1-800-4-MOVIES.
Finally, some companies name themselves after their toll-free number! This is the case for 1-800-FLOWERS, which now mostly does its business online.
Can you figure out who is calling you from an 877 number?
The short answer to this question is that you really can’t, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
First, it is possible for scammers to spoof phone numbers just as they do emails, so you can never be entirely sure that the number you are seeing is not just generated at random.
Second, information about who owns a certain toll-free number (like the area code 855 for instance) is not always available for privacy reasons.
Third, while you can google a number and sometimes figure out where it is coming from, some websites will simply include numbers in an effort to get another hit.
So, you can search for where a call is coming from, but treat any information that you find about this with skepticism.