North American Toll Free Routing
The Challenge
Toll-free phone numbers are a ubiquitous contact channel for many businesses in the United States and Canada, both large and small. Consumers can conveniently reach these businesses without having to pay for phone calls.
The calls are routed between the home operator of the calling consumer and the service provider of the called business, sometimes via several hops. Service providers and voice carriers involved in routing and transporting the calls need accurate data about each toll-free number in order to choose the most effective route.
The netnumber Global Data Services Solution
netnumber Global Data Services has partnered with SOMOS, the company that maintains the authoritative SMS/800 TFN Registry. SOMOS has been designated by the FCC to administer this database. Customers using the North American Toll-Free Routing service get access to near real-time routing information for toll-free numbers in the North American Numbering Plan.
Given a phone number, North American Toll-Free Routing will return a comprehensive set of related data elements. These enable customers to determine the correct routing of voice calls to toll-free numbers.

Key Features
Authoritative Data Source in North America
netnumber’s partner SOMOS has been designated by the FCC to administer the SMS/800 TFN Registry. This is therefore the authoritative database for voice call routing to toll-free numbers in the United States and Canada.
Fully Redundant Managed Service
We operate a fully redundant service which we manage 24x7. This ensures carrier-grade service availability and performance.
Lightning-Fast Service
With the SMS/800 TFN Registry data stored in our data centers or on customers’ premises, North American Toll-Free Routing is capable of the fastest response times in the industry. Speed is critical in voice routing in order to keep the call setup time as low as possible.
Flexible Deployment
North American Toll-Free Routing can be deployed as a cloud service, in AWS or on-premises.
Use Cases
Toll-Free Routing
netnumber Global Data Services enables mobile and landline operators to route calls to toll-free numbers accurately. Most operators benefit from the onsite deployment, where the onboard SMS/800 TFN Registry copy ensures the lowest possible latency. The toll-free routing database is maintained by retrieving regular, fresh updates from the netnumber Global Data Services servers. For each toll-free call, the toll-free number is looked up in the local SMS/800 TFN Registry copy. The corresponding routing information is retrieved and then used by the routing engine to select the correct route and terminate the call correctly and cost-effectively.
Benefits
- Enables accurate routing of voice calls to toll-free numbers
- Saves termination cost by helping voice carriers and service providers choose the most cost-effective routes
- Keeps the call setup time low when deployed on-premises or in AWS