Number (magazine)

Number is the leading Japanese sports magazine published on every Thursday by Bungeishunju. The official name is Sports Graphic Number. Though the circulation once hit 47 million, it is now around 10 million.

The first issue, released in April 1980, drew attention by the piece Enatsu's 21 balls (江夏の21球, Enatsu no 21 kyu). Yet the magazine failed to return a profit for the next 10 years. Today however, the magazine is one of the most profitable publications of Bungeishunju. The success of the magazine also led other rival publishers to launch sports magazines, though they tend to be less successful.

References

Personal Communications Services area codes

Area codes 500, 533, 544, 566 and 577 are non-geographic area codes reserved for personal communications services. The 500 code was authorized by the United States Federal Communications Commission, and introduced into the North American Numbering Plan in 1995.

In 1995 AT&T introduced a "follow-me" service under the brand name of AT&T True Connections using the 500 area code. It was designed to replace the AT&T EasyReach 700 service. Other local exchange carriers and interexchange carriers introduced similar competitive services.

AT&T True Connections service was not well received. Companies, hotels, and others with PBX equipment continued to block the dialing of 500 because it was a caller-paid number. Phone-sex services also began using the 500 prefix and forwarding the calls to various foreign countries.

The 500 prefix is still registered to a variety of phone companies, and is being used for non-geographic services including dial-up modem access.

Toll-free telephone number

A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls instead of incurring charges to the originating telephone subscriber. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge.

A toll-free, Freecall, Freephone, 800, 0800 or 1-800 number is identified by a dialing prefix similar to a geographic area code, such as 800. The specific service access numbers vary by country.

History

The features of toll-free services have evolved as telephone networks have moved from electro-mechanical call switching to fully computerized stored program controlled networks.

Originally, a call billed to the called party had to be placed through a telephone company operator as a collect call. The operator had to secure acceptance of the charges at the remote number before manually completing the call.

A few large businesses and government offices received large numbers of collect calls, which proved time consuming for operators.