Phoneword

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Call Word is a mnemonic phrase that is represented as an equivalent alphanumeric of a phone number. In many countries, the number on the phone keypad also has a set letter. By replacing the digit of a phone number with the corresponding letter, it is sometimes possible to form whole or partial words, acronyms, abbreviations, or some other alphanumeric combination.

Phoneword is the most common vanity number, although some numerical vanity numbers are used. Toll-free phone numbers are often branded using phonewords; some companies use easy-to-remember phone numbers like 1-800 Contacts, 1-800-Flowers, 1-866-RING-RING, or 1-800-GOT-JUNK? as a brand for a flagship product or a name for the whole company.

Local numbers are also sometimes used, such as 1-514-AUTOBUS or STM-INFO to reach SociÃÆ'Â © tÃÆ'Â © de transport de MontrÃÆ'Â © al, but subject to the limitation that the first few digits are related to geographical location - potentially limiting the choice which is available based on which telephone exchange is serving the local area.

Video Phoneword

Benefits

The main advantages of phonewords over standard phone numbers include increased memorability and increased response rates to advertisements. They are easier to remember than numeric phone numbers; therefore when businesses use it as a direct response tool in their advertisements (radio, television, print, outdoor, etc.), they are shown to increase response rates by 30-60%.

Regularly co-ordinated testing with phonewords and phone numbers in TV and radio ads in Australia has shown that phonewords generate up to twice as many calls as standard phone numbers. A study conducted by Roy Morgan Research in February 2006 showed that 92% of Australians are aware of alphanumeric calls.

Maps Phoneword

Disadvantages

In the days of sophisticated mobile devices, there are some disadvantages in using phonewords. Devices with physical keyboards like BlackBerry and some other smartphones do not have letters shared on the keys used for calls, so one can not make alphabetical calls without several other cross references to actual phone numbers. This can be fixed with phonewords that are also accompanied by actual numeric phone numbers, enabling smartphone users to make calls using numeric phone numbers.

However, devices with virtual keyboards, including iOS and Android devices, will translate phoneword phone numbers on web pages and SMS messages to the proper digits in hyperlinks leading to the device's device apps, and their keypads show the appropriate local mapping of the letters in in a virtual dialpad.

Some smartphone models allow users to enter letters into the device's call window to allow completion of phonewords. Many Blackberry models allow this feature by using the ALT key when pressing a button to select a letter instead of a number on the button.

On older landline phones, O, Q, and Z sometimes vary in placement or are eliminated entirely; this is not a problem for most mobile phones because all 26 letters should be provided to support the transmission of short messaging services.

Calls from 1 or 0 instead of I or O in phoneword can cause misdial calls; one of the typosquatting incidents targeted 1-800-HOLIDAY (1-800-465-4329, toll-free direct reservation line for Holiday Inn) with a 1-800-H0LIDAY subscription (1-800-405-4329, same number with 'o 'replaced by' zero ') to a competing rival vendor to collect a lucrative travel agency commission.

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Area variation

Australia

Phoneword was officially introduced to Australia after the release of the corresponding number range by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in August 2004. ACMA markets the use rights to fonewords (also referred to as smartnumbers) through an online auction.

Some phonewords have sold for A $ 1 million with 13TAXI raising A $ 1,005,000. The proposed range for reserve prices for SmartNumbersTM is listed by the Australian Communications Authority

The most commonly used types of numbers include those beginning with the '1300', and '1800' prefixes, which are ten digits long, and numbers start with '13', which is six digits.

The difference between prefixes is the length of the number (six or ten digits), the license fee to use it every year (about A $ 1 for 1800 and 1300, A $ 10,000 for 13 numbers) and call cost model. 1300 numbers and 13 numbers share the cost of the call between the caller and the call recipient, while the 1800 model offers nationwide free calls to the caller, with the total cost of the calls borne by the recipient.

Japanese

Numbers can be used to spell words in Japanese, with a system called goroawase. Most services are used by commercial companies in an effort to make their numbers easier to remember. The toll free number in Japan begins with 0120. Examples include 0120-363963, where the number 3963 can also be read as ????????? (sankyuu rooson, "Thanks, Lawson"), and 0120-026-999 where 026-999 can be read as ???????????? (??????? ofuro de kyukkyukkyu), which literally means "shower - fast, fast, fast".

North America

Keywords have been widely used for both local and toll-free numbers, with significant growth in the 1980s and 1990s.

Local phone numbers are always subject to constraints that the first digit must identify the geographic location, leaving little flexibility to choose a digit that spell a certain keyword tone. Toll-free numbering, as introduced by AT & amp; T in 1967, was initially even more limited, since each geographic area code was paired to one or two specific exchanges in the 1-800 toll free area code. This changed after Roy P. Weber of Bell Labs patented the "Database call communication method" which laid the initial blueprint for the development of the SMS/800 database in 1982 and the portable RespOrg structure in 1993. The toll free number, instead. indicates geographical location, is just a pointer to the database record; any number can geographically be reassigned anywhere and ported to any carrier. The seven digits are available to build the vanity or phonewords number.

As a toll-free number, the vanity 800 number supports flexible call tracking that allows businesses to determine the origin of incoming call traffic, build a prospect database, access demographic information to callers, allocate personnel based on call patterns, analyze outcome advertising campaigns and export data to programs other. The report helps to refine the advertising plan and media budget by providing detailed information about certain media purchases (such as radio, television or outdoor media).

Some companies also match domain names with phone words (for example, 1800-THRIFTY and the website www.1800thrifty.com ) to target phone and web users simultaneously.

One quick practice is that when consecutive toll-free area codes are introduced (888, 877, 866, etc.), a Business word or phrase will actually use one or more of the numbers in the area code. Examples are Rent-A-Wreck (1-87-RENT-A-WRECK or 1-US-RENT-A-WRECK), Speedpass (1-87-SPEEDPASS), and one of the first Vonage numbers (1- VONAGE-HELP ). However, this proves to be more confusing than helping the callers, so this practice is not often used.

Russian

When the telephone appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the phone number consisted of different letters and numbers. In 1968, the letters were replaced by numbers, but recently the phonewords have returned to popularity in Russia. Many ISPs offer customer vanity numbers.

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Generating phonewords

Even though a business usually chooses a phone number to fit a particular phonewords, it is also possible to go the other way, and produce a phoneword that matches the given number.

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See also

• E.161
• Teledotcom
• Name of telephone exchange
• Phone Numbering Package
• Phone number
• Toll free number
• Vanity Plates
• Custom Toll Free
• T9 (predictive algorithm)

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia