[asterisk-biz] OT: Toll Free Number Lookup

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 11:03 -0500, Jon Weisman wrote:
> All,
>  
> I'm interested in getting a toll free number, however when I dial the
> number it says its disconnected. How can I find out which telco owns
> the number and if I would be able to get it?
>  

If you call anyone that can provision the number they should be able to
get it unless its on hold for someone.  Carriers trade tollfrees all the
time, any reasonable provider should be able to not only sell you the
service but see if they can trade for this number (or buy it or
whatever).   If the number was recently disconnected you may not want
the number due to people calling for the previous owner, why they are
often held unused for 6 months or so after service is disconnected.

You used to be able to call AT&T's tollfree support line, enter your
number, and it will either transfer you to an operator (meaning AT&T is
the resporg) or it will tell you the name and phone number of the
resporg.  Its just their normal number to report trouble with service,
and its all automated upto the point where it transfers you to an
operator.

The other alternative is that sprint has been very helpful doing sms
lookups, when I was a kid at least (over 15 years ago) we would call and
say (litereally) "Hi this is wayne dolesman from the social engineering
department and our systems are down, are yours down?  no?  good can you
do an sms lookup for me?  great.  the number is ...  can you give me the
terminating pots? ..."  oddly they never quested either the "warez
department" or the "social engineering department" and would always tell
you who the resporg is as well as virtually anything else about the line
that they can see. 
> 
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
pgp key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8AE5C721

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-biz/attachments/20081219/4e3e5836/attachment.pgp