A Brief History of Toll Free Numbers

Today, even one-person businesses have 800 number. 800 numbers were introduced in 1967 by AT&T as a means of scaling back on the amount of human operators necessary to process collect calls. At that time, collect calls served as the basis for toll free numbers. The original toll free phone service was called Inward Wide Area Telephone Service or INWATS. The first business to use the new service was the Sheraton Hotel Chain.

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