Weird telephone number??? (646) 291-9400

I recently got a phone call on my cell phone from a friend. The caller
id said "caller unknown" but my bill reflected the number the call came
from was (646) 291-9400. When I looked up reverse records, it said the
number was an AT and T Wireless number, and when I tried to call it
back the day after, there was a message that said the number was
disconnected.

My friend said she was in the UK, however, this appears to be a New
York telephone number. I also doubted at the time that it was a
"calling card" phone number, since upon redial, there's usually an
answer identifying it as the calling card number.

Any ideas what this might be?

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[email protected] wrote:

> I recently got a phone call on my cell phone from a friend. The caller
> id said "caller unknown" but my bill reflected the number the call came
> from was (646) 291-9400. When I looked up reverse records, it said the
> number was an AT and T Wireless number, and when I tried to call it
> back the day after, there was a message that said the number was
> disconnected.
>
> My friend said she was in the UK, however, this appears to be a New
> York telephone number. I also doubted at the time that it was a
> "calling card" phone number, since upon redial, there's usually an
> answer identifying it as the calling card number.
>
> Any ideas what this might be?
>

It has to do with the US running out of phone numbers. My
last attws tdma phone has a "public number" i give out and
people dial, but the phone is actually registered in the
system as a different area code and number.

I had to put my public number in my directory so i could
remember it, the nam number don't work, if i dial that, i
irritate some lady in a nearby town on her residential line.

We now have virtual phone switches with virtual numbers.

-larry / dallas

That's good information. The only thing is that this person is British
and was supposedly there when the call was made. And this was the only
call where a number like this came up.

What is a "virtual phone switch," by the way, and a "virtual number?"

And does anyone know what a "blue license" is?

Poetguy wrote:
>
> What is a "virtual phone switch," by the way, and a "virtual number?"
Google can give you pages on the technology.

In the old days, the phone company had a PHONE SWITCHing
device (aka Central Office or CO) that routed originating
calls to phone line destinations that had fixed permanent
NUMBERs. Today, the calls are just a digital stream that a
computer running a VIRTUAL PHONE SWITCH software package can
route to a phone device (be it a desk phone, cellphone ..on
and on..) that the NUMBER can be changed at will in the
software, becoming a VIRTUAL NUMBER. Old mobile telephones
had to have physical changes inside the box to change
numbers, today the VS does all that. Grossly simplified, but
maybe enough?

>
> And does anyone know what a "blue license" is?
>

No idea on the blue license, but based on this newsgroup,
and ATTWS being the old "blue" network (maybe blue licenses
too)? And Cingular being the acquiring "orange" network with
maybe orange licenses? The color code is from the color
used in the ad campaigns and moniker color.

-larry / dallas

Poetguy wrote:
> That's good information. The only thing is that this person is British
> and was supposedly there when the call was made.

There are a lot of possibilities. This person may have used a call-back
type of long distance service, or some long distance service that
appears to be local from a north american point of view, in which case,
the caller ID you got would reflect some "phone network node" for a long
distance carrier in the USA that is making the call to you.


If the number began with 44 instead of 64, it would likely be some
software bug that took the country code and used it to form the first 2
digits of the area code.

I once had a friend in new zealand call me in Canada. It seems that
internally in NZ's switches, canada is country code "2" instead of "1",
so the NZ phone company had a bug in its billing and instead of using
"1", it tried to build a country code that started with 2 and used first
two digits of my area code to then build country code 251 which is
ethiopia and charged her an arm and leg.