[tl2do]

Quick telephony question: how can calls from payphones to [phone] be toll-free for the caller? I’m Japanese, so I may be missing something, but I don’t understand the mechanism that makes this free (or low-cost enough) to run as a free service.

[toast0]

Most countries have some numbers with receiver pays or reverse billing as a feature. Sometimes called 'free phone'.

My research says Japan has several prefixes, 0120, 0800, 0088, 0531, although not all phone numbers in these prefixes are available to all callers.

In the US, holders of a toll free number pay their carrier a per minute rate (sometimes with billing increments of 1 second), as well as a fee per call from payphones.

The per minute pricing is pretty reasonable typically one or two cents per minute; I think the per call cost from a payphone are more significant, although I don't see this listed by most providers; I seem to recall it being pretty hefty (and some toll free numbers would not accept calls from payphones as a result), but maybe changes in the network and intercarrier billing have resulted in a smaller fee or it's just not relevant to most people because payphones are hard to find.

[tl2do]

Thanks. Your explanation can solve my question. In Japan, the receiver will pay for toll free call around 30 yen per call. Here it is difficult to run free service like Payphone Go considering the cost.

[slim]

the owner of the [phone] line pays for incoming calls