Area code 641 is a

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into el ...

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, re ...

for a central portion of

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

, including Mason City, and Ottumwa. It was split off from area 515 on July 9, 2000; this was the first such split in Iowa since the establishment of the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international calling ...

in 1947.

Traffic pumping

Many

calling card ''Calling Card'' is the sixth studio album and eighth album overall by Irish singer/guitarist Rory Gallagher. A 1976 release, it was his second of four albums released on Chrysalis Records in the 1970s. Deep Purple/Rainbow bass guitarist Roger ...

and conference service providers operate in area 641. For calls to a rural number in area 641, the long distance provider has to pay the termination fee to the receiving telecom party: up to 8 cents a minute. Using this arbitrage, some of the service providers operate here and require one to dial the "local access number" in area 641. Large telecom providers are the hardest hit with the costs for these so-called free service providers. Around March 2007

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

filed a suit to withhold these arbitrage payments (AT&T got a $2 million bill a month). In 2006, various companies began using Iowa's 641 as a number to access

voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

gateways, including one which purported to allow users to "call China for free". The scheme, no longer in operation, was based on the wholesale cost of calls to rural Iowa being substantially more than the cost of Internet calls to China.

References

External links

List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 641 Area Code
{{Area code box, State=IA, This=area code 641, N=

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319 __NOTOC__ Year 319 ( CCCXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantinus and Licinius (or, less frequently, year 1 ...

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515 __NOTOC__ Year 515 ( DXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Florentius and Anthemius (or, less frequently, year 1268 ...

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641 __NOTOC__ Year 641 ( DCXLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 641 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

Traffic pumping

See also

References

External links