Call forwarding

Call forwarding, or call diversion, is a

telephony feature of some telephone
switching systems which redirects a
telephone call to another destination,
which may be, for example, a mobile or
another telephone number where the
desired called party is available. Call
forwarding was invented by Ernest J.
Bonanno.[1] In North America, the
forwarded line usually rings once to
remind the customer using call
forwarding that the call is being
redirected. More consistently, the
forwarded line indicates its condition by
stutter dial tone. Call forwarding typically
can redirect incoming calls to any other
domestic telephone number, but the
owner of the forwarded line must pay any
toll charges for forwarded calls. Call
forwarding is often enabled by dialing
*72 followed by the telephone number to
which calls should be forwarded. Once
someone answers, call forwarding is in
effect. If no one answers or the line is
busy, the dialing sequence must be
repeated to effect call forwarding. Call
forwarding is disabled by dialing *73.
This feature requires a subscription from
the telephone company. Also available in
some areas is Remote Access to call
forwarding, which permit the control over
call forwarding from telephones other
than the subscriber's telephone. VOIP
and cable telephone systems also often
allow call forwarding to be set up and
directed via their web portals.

In Europe, most networks indicate that

unconditional call forwarding is active
with a special dial tone. When the phone
is picked up it is immediately apparent
that calls are being forwarded.While in
other countries same system is being
followed now.
Terminology
The ISDN Diversion supplementary
services[2] standards document uses
"diversion" as a general term to
encompass specific features including
"Call Forwarding Busy", "Call Forwarding
No Reply" and "Call Deflection".

The terms call forwarding and call

diversion are both used to refer to any
feature that allows a call to be routed to
a third party, and the terms are generally
interchangeable.

Keypad codes
North America
Special types of call forwarding can be
activated only if the line is busy, or if
there is no answer, or even only for calls
from selected numbers. In North
America, the NANP generally uses the
following vertical service codes to
control call forwarding:

Number
Forward service Activation Deactivation
change

*72[phone number]
*72[1+phone number] (in some larger
All calls cities)8156890913 *73

On busy or no
*68 *8156890913
answer

From select
*63 *81
callers

On ISDN *56

Customer-programmable features (where available):

Busy line *90 *91 *41

No answer *92 *93 *611

The Sprint Nextel cellphone company
uses these:[3]

Forward service Activation Deactivation

On busy or no answer *28[phone number] *38

On busy *74[phone number] *740

On no answer *73[phone number] *730

Immediately *72[phone number] *720

As of Jan 2012, Sprint charges 20

cents per minute for unconditional call
forwarding, conditional call forwarding
is included however.[4]
Some carriers (including Verizon
Wireless) use *71 for conditional
forwarding although this is not
standard.[5]
Sometimes, to deactivate a call
forwarding, *720 will work on
cellphones.
Europe

Most EU fixed-line carriers use the

following codes based on CEPT and ETSI
standards developed in the 1970s on
both POTS and ISDN lines: (There may be
some variation to these, but the
unconditional code *21*, is very much
universally standard on EU telephone
lines.) The general syntax for all
European service codes always follows
the pattern below:
 Cancel & Cancel &
Forward service Activate Status Reestablish
Deregister Retain
Unconditional forwarding:

all calls *21*[phone

#21# #21# *#21# *21#
(unconditionally) number]#
Conditional forwarding:

*69*[phone
number]# or #69# or #69# or *#69# or *69# or
if busy
*67*[phone #67# #67# *#67# *67#
number]#

*61*[phone
if not answered #61# #61# *#61# *61#
number]#

Mobile (cell) phones

For GSM/3GSM (UMTS) phones, the

GSM standard defines the following
forwarding Unstructured Supplementary
Service Data. These were developed by
ETSI and are based on standard
European diversion codes and are similar
to those used on most landlines in the
EU:[6]
 Cancel & Cancel &
Forward service Activate Status Reestablish
Deregister Retain
Unconditional forwarding:

*21*[phone
all calls ##21# #21# *#21# *21#
number]#
Conditional forwarding:

*67*[phone
if busy ##67# #67# *#67# *67#
number]#

if not answered (see

*61*[phone *#61# (incl.
below for custom ##61# #61# *61#
number]# time delay)
delay)

*62*[phone
if out of reach ##62# #62# *#62# *62#
number]#

*002*[phone
all forwards ##002# #002# *#002# *002#
number]#

all conditional *004*[phone

##004# #004# *#004# *004#
forwards number]#

If the prefix to the forwarding command

is "**" (instead of the usual "*"), then the
phone number in that command is
registered in the network. If after that the
forwarding is deactivated using a
command with a single "#", then later it
will be possible to re-activate this
forwarding again with a simple "*"
command without a phone number in it.
The forwarding will be re-activated to the
number registered in the network. For
example, if one uses the out-of-reach
code in a forwarding command:

**62*7035551212#

and after that one deactivates the

forwarding:

#62#

then later it will be possible to re-activate

the out-of-reach forwarding without
specifying a number:

*62#
After the above command, all calls made
to the phone, while it is out of reach, will
be forwarded to 7035551212. It is
possible to activate the feature to a
number other than the registered number,
while still retaining the registered number
for later use. For example, issuing the
command:

*62*7185551212#

will result in calls being forwarded to

7185551212 (and not to the registered
number 7035551212). However, if later a
command is issued:

*62#
then the calls will again be forwarded to
the registered number 7035551212 (and
not to the number from the previous
forwarding command 7185551212).

Setting a custom delay

In GSM networks, such as T-Mobile and

AT&T Mobility in USA, and all mobile
networks in EU, it is possible to set the
number of seconds the phone will ring
before forwarding. This is specified by
inserting "*SC*XX" prior to the final "#" of
the forwarding command, where "SC" is a
service type code (11 for voice, 25 for
data, 13 for fax), and "XX" is the number
of seconds in increments of 5 seconds. If
"SC" is omitted (just "**XX") then by
default all service types will be
forwarded. For example, forwarding on
no-answer can be set with:

*61*[phone number]**
[seconds]#

Forwarding voice calls only can be set

with:

*61*[phone number]*11*
[seconds]#

In some networks there may be a limit of

not more than 30 seconds before
forwarding (i.e. “XX” can only be 05, 10,
15, 20, 25, or 30; all greater values, like 45
and 60, will result in the forwarding
command being rejected and an error
message returned).

Uses
Diverting calls can increase one's
availability to a caller. The main
alternative is an answering machine or
voicemail, but some callers do not wish
to leave a recorded message, suspecting
that the party will delay returning their
messages.

Some businesses find that the human

touch can improve contact, thus sales,
but traditional wired answering services
are expensive, so they have their calls
forwarded to a call center, so the client
can reach an operator instead of an
answering machine or voice mail. Before
the availability of call forwarding,
commercial answering services needed
to physically connect to every line for
which they provided after-hours
response; this required their offices be
located near the local central exchange
and be fed by a huge multi-pair trunk in
which a separate pair of wires existed for
each client subscriber. With call
forwarding, there is no physical
connection to the client's main telephone
service, which is merely call-forwarded to
the answering service (usually on a direct
inward dial number) at the end of the
business day.

Often, a suburb of a large city is a toll call

from many suburban exchanges on the
opposite side of the same city, even
though all of these suburbs are a local
call to the city centre. A business located
in such a suburb may therefore benefit
from obtaining a downtown number as
an "extender", to be permanently
forwarded to their geographic suburban
number.

Where unlimited local calls are flat-rated

and long-distance incurs high per-minute
charges, the downtown number's wider
local calling area represents a
commercial advantage. Markham
(directly north of Toronto) is long-
distance to Mississauga (directly west of
Toronto) . A Markham business with a
forwarded 416 number could receive
calls from Toronto's entire local calling
area without incurring long-distance tolls
(as both legs, Mississauga → Toronto
and Toronto → Markham, are each a
local call).

Some services offer international call

forwarding by allocating for the customer
a local virtual phone number which is
forwarded to any other international
destination. The number was
permanently forwarded and had no
associated telephone line. As a means to
obtain an inbound number from another
town or region for business use, "remote
call forwarding" schemes tend to be far
less expensive than foreign exchange
lines but more costly than using voice
over IP to obtain a local number in the
chosen city.

Call forwarding can also assist travelers

who do not have international cell phone
plans and who wish to continue to
receive their voicemails through a VOIP
voicemail very easily while abroad.

See also
Follow-me
 Hunting (telephony)
Remote call forwarding
GSM USSD codes - Unstructured
Supplementary Service Data: list of
standard GSM codes for network and
SIM related functions

Notes
1. Bonanno, Ernest J. (1963-09-24). "CA
671260 - Call Forwarding Arrangement" .
Canadian Patents Database. Canadian
Intellectual Property Office. Retrieved
2010-08-11.
2. ETSI (1995-01-04). "ISDN Diversion
supplementary services ETS 300 207" .
ISDN Specification. European
Telecommunications Standards Institute.
Retrieved 2011-10-26.
3. "Find out more about call forwarding" .
Support and Services. Sprint.com.
Archived from the original on February 4,
2010. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
4. "iPhone 4S/Call Forwarding" . Support
and Services. Sprint.com. 2012-01-17.
Retrieved 2012-06-24.
5. "Calling features: No Answer/Busy
Transfer" . Support. Verizon Wireless.
Retrieved 2012-06-24.
6. "GSM feature codes" . Tips and Secrets.
Gecko Beach. Retrieved 2010-07-26.

External links
 Call Forwarding User manual , Bell
Canada

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Call_forwarding&oldid=890425651"

Last edited 29 days ago by an ano…

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