Just because a couple resporgs have developed the capacity to suck up over 10,000 toll free numbers per minute doesn’t mean they should be allowed to. I initially proposed that each resporg administrator should have a daily limit of 1,000 numbers per day for the month of October. Upon lengthy reflection I think the limitation should be 500 per resporg administrator, for the first day and then 1000 per day for just 1 week. Faster resporgs will get their numbers first, but this will allow regular phone companies to get an equal number of requests in per day. It will also reduce dramatically the strain on the SMS800 database.

Read more about what the FCC and public comments on 855 Allocation

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The FCC will impose a Temporary Daily Cap on 855 numbers

At the time the FCC scheduled the 855 opening (for the first day after the SMS said they would be ready by), the SMS was estimating that we would run out of toll free numbers all together before the end of the year. The projected exhaust date varies but has typically been sometime in the middle of next year. So delaying the 855 release if it was necessary, or beneficial for any reason, would be possible.

The other way to look at it is, that when they say they don’t want to avoid delaying it, that means they are considering the need to delay it. Just like when a politician or even the President says, “Let me be perfectly clear…”, that means he’s about to say something very unclear or something that contradicts what he or other people have said. This doesn’t mean the 855 numbers will be delayed, but there is at least some possibility. And honestly I don’t think that would hurt anything either if they did delay.

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Can the 855 release be Delayed?

My proposal is to limit each organization to 500 855 numbers on the first day and 1000, 855 numbers per day each day for just one week. After that companies could grab as many numbers as they want, and delaying that for one week isn’t going to kill anyone. But it is going to insure that regular customers and smaller phone companies aren’t shut out entirely of all the good numbers. This also has another very important benefit because this insures that the entire SMS system doesn’t get as overloaded at the release.

The SMS has had technical issues during previous new area code introductions because of the extreme volume of requests from every carrier at the same time. This is understandable because it doesn’t make financial sense to require the SMS800 to build the capacity to withstand a one time peak which probably won’t happen again for several years. Several recent comments and discussions this week have suggested that spreading out the rush would definitely be a benefit to the SMS as well. I’ve included these in an update to my original comments.

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855 Allocation Questions

Someone said that 855 numbers aren’t as well known or recognized yet so they weren’t sure if it was worth it. I think the question you have to ask yourself is would the 866 be worth it? Because you can’t wait until it’s well known to request it. If you wait until 855 numbers are well known, you certainly won’t be able to get anything nearly as good as you can now!

You're in the right place at the right time!

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But 855 isn’t as well known

We charge a fraction of the Price.
We’re the only company getting 855 numbers for customers, that’s doing it for the same price that we always charge for numbers from the available pool. We’re not gouging or raising our prices for 855 numbers like everyone else just because there’s a higher demand for new 855 numbers.

We do more for customers than anyone else.
We’re the only company that’s also giving your request to your regular phone company too. Having multiple companies requesting numbers for you is one of the surest ways to increase your chances of getting the number you want. We also think this is good for the whole industry and helping all phone companies as well as the customer. It may decrease slightly the number of numbers we get for customers but we do this because we’re more concerned about increasing the customer’s chances of getting what they want than we are about maximizing our profit.

There’s much less risk.
Everyone else charges an average of about $50 just to try to get a number for you, even if they’re not successful! We’re only charging $8.55 which includes giving your request to your local phone company, which even the companies that charge thousands of dollars to get you a number don’t do.

We’re not trying to sell numbers for as much as we can get.
We’re not auctioning off 855 numbers which we believe is clearly against the FCC regulations about brokering 800 numbers as some companies are doing. I definitely think the auction process some services are doing would probably be considered brokering and would be illegal if the FCC reviewed it.

We’re not trying to get numbers for ourselves.
We don’t claim ownership of numbers and rent toll free numbers at all. Because if a phone company claims ownership of and rents out their own numbers, then even if they say you get ownership of the number, you’re essentially competing with them. They’re not going to put your request in front of any of their own requests that they think are worth more to them than you’re paying them for the number you want. We also don’t have outrageous terms of service, designed to screw customers as much as possible.

We have 15 years of experience and more satisfied customers than anyone.
We’ve helped more customers get vanity numbers than any other vanity number business because we have better 800 lookup tools and focus on the customer’s needs first. We’re literally the only major company for 855 numbers that’s charging based on the time and effort it takes, rather than the value of the numbers or how much people might be willing to pay.

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Comparing sites that offer to get 855 numbers

Someone sent me an email that a representative of one of the top phone companies sent them saying “There is no Pre-Release Request process as has been claimed by some companies.”

I think it’s clear that the representative was confusing the word REQUEST with RESERVE. It’s certainly true, there’s no way to RESERVE 855 numbers before the opening on Oct. 2nd. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to submit 855 REQUESTS to your phone company before then, which would be stupid. Some phone companies don’t have any public way to submit requests, but most phone companies do or at least will at some point. And it’s ridiculous to make a blanket statement that, no phone company is collecting requests.

That’s kind of like saying you can’t give someone your Christmas wish list until Christmas day. It may be true that you can’t give some their Christmas gift until Christmas day, but it would be pretty dumb for someone to say that you can’t tell anyone what you want or hope to get for Christmas until Christmas day. If you waited until Christmas day to say what you want for Christmas, you might get a few leftover things that nobody else wanted, but you’re certainly not going to be able to get anything good!

Read more about why you not only CAN submit your requests ahead of time but you SHOULD!

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No Early Request Process for 855? WRONG!

We’ve worked at this for some time and come up with almost two hundred possible definitions of “Good” numbers. We can’t give out the details of this system or give out the whole list, because almost as soon as we do, it wouldn’t be any good any more. But we’ve come up with a way to show a selection of these with each search now. Every time you do a search now, you’ll find a new group of 45 numbers at the bottom of the second Possibilities box. Just click on any number you like to check it live like you would any other number in that section.

Read more about our new Good 800 Numbers

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Good 800 Numbers

Caroline Waxler wrote a great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday called 212 Lust, about how 212 numbers are the most coveted new accessory on the New York tech scene. We obviously focus more on toll free numbers than local numbers here but the article shows very clearly how the area code matters and gives a certain image.

As we’re getting ready for a whole new toll free area code of 855 numbers, this article shows the importance of the image a phone number. 212 and 800 have a lot of analogies, although the image certainly matters more in a commercial setting than it does in the personal settings in her article. The purpose for getting a toll free number is to look like a big established industry leader, which a real 1-800 number definitely does, more than other more common toll free numbers or local numbers.

We’re adding local vanity numbers to the toll free number lookup soon and we’re also trying very hard to evaluate all numbers based on their value so this definitely helps to remind us about the importance of certain hard to find local area codes too. 212 may be the best example of this, other than 800, but there are several other places all across the country where this happens to a lesser extent.

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Area codes matter: 212-Lust

The ones with the turkey platters and the most people aren’t the biggest phone companies either, they’re the vanity number resporgs. That’s because vanity number resporgs get to keep the value of the numbers they get for themselves, so can afford to pay for more access than any regular phone company could possibly justify.

So while the 855 numbers are issued by the national database on a first come first served basis, and phone companies may be putting in the requests in the order they’re received, the vanity number resporgs don’t have to wait for customers to request numbers, they are just going straight for all the shrimp and lobster off the buffet. So be smart about what you request and make sure you pick up a few hamburger numbers too, not just the filet mignon.

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Aren’t 855 Numbers, First Come First Served?