Intercepted Number
In the middle 20th century in North America when a call could not be completed, for example because the phone number was not assigned, had been disconnected, or was experiencing technical difficulties, it went to an intercept operator who informed the caller. In the 1970s this service was converted to Automatic Intercept Systems which automatically chooses and presents an appropriate intercept message. Disconnected numbers are reassigned to new users after the rate of calls to them declines.
Outside of North America, operator intercept was rare, and in most cases calls to unassigned or disconnected numbers would result in a recorded message or number-unobtainable tone being returned to the caller.
Read more about this topic: Telephone Number
Famous quotes containing the word number:
“A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate”
—Christopher Hampton (b. 1946)