Area code 641

Area code 319 Area code 563 Area code 515 Area code 641 Area code 712 Area code 605 Area code 402 Area code 660 Area code 507 Area code 608 Area code 815 Area code 309 Area code 217
Clickable map showing the area codes of Iowa with the colored red indicating the region covered by area code 641

Area code 641 is a telephone area code for a central portion of Iowa, including Mason City, and Ottumwa. It was split off from area 515 on July 9, 2000; this was the first such split in Iowa since the establishment of the North American Numbering Plan in 1947.

The map to the right is clickable: click on any of the area codes on the map to go to the area code for that region.

Traffic pumping

Main article: traffic pumping

A large number of calling card and conference service providers operate in area 641. When one calls a rural number in area 641, the long distance provider has to pay the termination fee to the receiving telecom party: up to 8 cents a minute. Using this arbitrage, some of the service providers operate here and require one to dial the 'local access number' in area 641. Large telecom providers are the hardest hit with the costs for these so-called free service providers. AT&T filed a suit to withhold these arbitrage payments (AT&T got a $2 million bill a month). (March 2007)

In 2006, various companies began using Iowa's 641 as a number to access voice over IP gateways, including one which purported to allow users to "call China for free".[1] The scheme, no longer in operation, was based on the wholesale cost of calls to rural Iowa being substantially more than the cost of Internet calls to China.

See also

External links

  1. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20070208231638/http://www.callchinaforfree.com/
Iowa area codes: 319, 515, 563, 641, 712
North: 507
West: 515, 712 area code 641 East: 319, 563
South: 660
Minnesota area codes: 218, 320, 507, 612, 651, 763, 952
Missouri area codes: 314, 417, 573, 636, 660, 816
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/1/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.