# Area Codes 500 and 700 (North America) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 22, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/area-codes-500-and-700-north-america/607124 "2011-12-22T22:00:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AndyLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@AndyLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndyLee)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/area-codes-500-and-700-north-america/607124/1 "2011-12-22T22:00:48Z")
I read the Wikipedia articles on them > **[Personal communications service (NANP)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_codes_500,_533_and_544)** > > In telecommunication, a personal communications service is defined by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) as "a set of capabilities that allows some combination of personal mobility, terminal mobility, and service profile management". > Personal communications services use a special non-geographic area code of the format 5XX for assigning telephone numbers for service instances. > The designation of the 5XX area code format was authorized by the United States Federal Commu... > **[Area code 700](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_700)** > > Area code 700 of the North American Numbering Plan is a service access code (SAC) implemented by interexchange carriers. It is reserved for carrier-specific number assignments to special services or destinations. It was introduced in 1983 for providing customized services in anticipation of the introduction of long-distance competition in the United States, but this usage has been deprecated. The area code has found renewed usage for custom calling services by voice over IP service providers and ... But I am not getting quite what the article says. It doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Can anyone explain it a little better? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/area-codes-500-and-700-north-america/607124/2 "2011-12-22T22:19:11Z")
NANPA originally assigned area code 500 for a special class of services that included things like a primitive version of call-forwarding. For example, you could pay for a 500-XXX-XXXX number, and then inform your long distance company of the “real” number where you were currently located, and customers calling the 500 number would be forwarded to the real number. Like 800 and 900 numbers, these are a special non-geographic class of area codes. These services never really caught on for personal use, due to their poor marketability and the fact that the caller would have to pay when you forwarded the number to Uzbekistan. The 700 area code is another special non-geographic code which was introduced back when the first non-monopoly long-distance companies were coming on line. The idea was, while every POTS number uniquely identifies one subscriber line in North America, the 700 numbers could all be used by every long distance carrier. If you called a 700 number, you would be connected to whatever service your long-distance provider supplied for that number. So two people could get two entirely different things at the same 700 number if they subscribed to different long distance carriers. These likewise were not very popular due to confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/area-codes-500-and-700-north-america/607124/3 "2011-12-22T22:19:47Z")
If I understand the articles correctly, they’re saying that area codes 500 and 700 are assigned not to geographic areas, but to specific phone companies to use for their own purposes. Thus, if you dial 700-555-4567 from a phone that uses Sprint, it may connect you to Sprint central headquarters, but the same number dialed on Verizon phone may give you Verizon tech support, and on an AT&T phone might be assigned to AT&T Human Resources. Also, since they’re neither assigned to specific geographical regions nor toll-free numbers, you have no idea whether calling a 500 or 700 number will be a local or a long-distance call.