Today (Christmas Day 1997) I once again found myself unable to place a call to my sister. The message I received for about ten tries during an hour was (the infamous tones) "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later." Needless to say, I was getting frustrated and trying to find the Equal Access codes in the phone book only netted me MCI's code (sorry MCI, but your "service" or lack there of, left a very bad taste in my mouth). So I decided to look on the internet (where else would I look?) to get the Equal Access Number. I looked up www.sprint.com, but it took me about 20 minutes of digging through their web site to find the code. So after finding the code, I used Sprint and my call went through on the first try!
So in the interest of speed for others to find these codes, I figured I would post a page of them and links to the companies web sites
Addendum - most of the codes are now 1010xxx instead of 10xxx, can't tell you the date it changed, but it happened sometime in 1998.
Listed in order of the FCC Top 20 for 1996
| Company | Code | where I found the code number |
| AT&T | 1010288 (1010ATT) | AT&T For Home Customers |
| MCI WORLDCOM | 1010222 | MCI WorldCom Toll Calling (I had to go back to the phone book to find it and then search their site) |
| Sprint | 1010333 | Sprint Personal (took a while to find) NOTE: Not using Long Distance on my Computer Line, I didn't have it |
| WorldCom | see MCI above | |
| Frontier | This may be them Frontier Corp | |
| Excel/Telco Group | Excel Communications - Home Page (multi-level marketing for long distance & paging services) |
|
| LCI International | LCI Now a part of Qwest/US West | |
| Cable & Wireless | Not Available | Cable & Wireless, Incorporated (CWI) Home Web Page |
| VarTec Telecom | 1010811 | VarTec Home Page "The Five Line" nickel/minute, 50cents/ first 10 minutes |
| Cherry Comm. | (was listed on Yahoo, but not anymore) 960904_cherry_suspend.txt Maybe this problem with California has something to do with it... |
|
| TeleSave | TeleSave long distance with lots of useful info too! | |
| Telegroup, Inc. | Telegroup, Inc. | |
| Star Telecom. | StarTel.com | |
| IXC Comm. | Now BroadWing Communications | |
| WorldxChange | 1010502 | WorldxChange Communications You NEED to read this first: DLD DIGEST HALL OF SHAME- CTS WORLDXCHANGE |
| U.S. Long Distance | U.S. Long Distance Home Page ( couldn't reach the site ) | |
| Pacific Gateway Exchange | Pacific Gateway Exchange - Online |
17 Company names - 15 Company Web Sites - 7 Access Codes - Several Comments about problems
Here is a great spot for info on long distance companies:
Discount Long Distance Digest - HOMEPAGE
(check out their HALL OF SHAME! You need to know this stuff!)
Also found this about finding the right company for you:
TeleWorth - Long Distance - Telephone Rates
( couldn't reach the site )
And this spot on Yahoo list lots of the approximately 500 long distance companies
Yahoo!
- Business and Economy:Companies:Telecommunications:Long Distance Telephone
Well this is a start... I got lost in the documents from the FCC ... you can find listing of every long distance carrier out there, with bunches of them having what looks to be either the same or very similar names... they do have a nice search engine for their site, at least our taxes have done some good some where ;)
Lots of information you need to know about if you have a telephone in the US :
Common Carrier Bureau Consumer News
FCC Consumer Information Bureau
Last update April 23, 2000
Links last verified April 23, 2000