Premium-rate telephone number
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Premium-rate telephone numbers are telephone numbers for telephone calls during which certain services are provided, and for which prices higher than normal are charged. Unlike a normal call, part of the call charge is paid to the service provider, thus enabling businesses to be funded via the calls. While the billing is different, calls are usually routed the same way they are for a toll-free telephone number, being anywhere despite the area code used.
The issuing of these numbers to service providers is typically regulated by a national body, such as ICSTIS (the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services) in the United Kingdom, to ensure certain community standards are adhered to both in terms of content and price. Charges are presented as part of the normal telephone bill.
Adult chat lines (phone sex) and tech support are a very common use of premium-rate numbers. Other services include directory enquiries, weather forecasts, competitions and voting (especially relating to television shows). Diplomatic services, such as the US embassy in London, have also been seen to charge premium rates for calls from the general public. In this case, the primary motive behind assigning a premium rate number may be to reduce the call volume from casual callers, a tactic also employed by tech support lines to also reduce call length as well.
These telephone numbers are usually allocated from a national telephone numbering plan in such a way that they are easily distinguished from other numbers. Telephone companies typically offer blocking services to allow telephone customers to prevent access to these number ranges from their telephones.
North America
A 1-900 telephone number, in the North American Numbering Plan, usually has the form 1-900-###-####, as is often called a 900 number or a 1-900 number ("one-nine-hundred"). Earlier, 976 numbers used 976 as a local prefix, though it was not assigned to a specific telephone exchange like other prefixes. These numbers were dialed as any other local number, such as 976-1234.
A call to either one of these numbers can result in a high per-minute or per-call charge. For example, a "psychic hotline" type of 1-900 number may charge $2.99 for the first minute and 99 cents for each additional minute. Phone lines can be configured to prevent the dialing of a 900 or 976 number.
Some uses of 1-900 numbers:
- video game tips
- horoscopes/psychics
- dating and party lines
- erotic one-on-one chats
- voting (e.g. for TV shows)
- contests
Sometimes, these have 800 number standards, but charge a toll.
Europe
In the United Kingdom, any telephone number starting 09 is charged at premium rates, in a similar fashion to a 900 number in North America.
In Norway, any telephone number starting with 82 (mostly 820/829) is charged at premium rates (82x xx xxx).
Using international-rate calls as premium-rate numbers
As an alternative to official premium-rate numbers, service operators have been known to use kickbacks from high-rate international call tariffs to charge for their services. In these cases, the calls may never leave the country of origin, even though the number has a country calling code (or an NANP area code) specifying a country with high incoming call rates.
Since these kinds of numbers have confused international jurisdiction, they are also sometimes used for fraud.
See also: teletraffic, telephony billing