Phonewords are mnemonic phrases represented as alphanumeric equivalents of a telephone number. In many countries, the digits on the telephone keypad also have letters assigned. By replacing the digits of a telephone number with the corresponding letters, it is sometimes possible to form a whole or partial word, an acronym, abbreviation, or some other alphanumeric combination. Phonewords are the most common vanity numbers, although a few all-numeric vanity phone numbers are used. Toll-free telephone numbers are often branded using phonewords; some firms use easily memorable vanity telephone numbers like 1-800 Contacts, 1-800-Flowers, 1-866-RING-RING, or 1-800-GOT-JUNK? as brands for flagship products or names for entire companies. Local numbers are also occasionally used, such as +1-514-AUTOBUS or STM-INFO to reach the Société de transport de Montréal, but are constrained by the fact that the first few digits are tied to a geographic location, potentially limiting the available choices based on which telephone exchanges serve a local area.
Advantages The main advantages of phonewords over standard phone numbers include increased memorability and increased response rates to advertising. They are easier to remember than numeric phone numbers; thus, when businesses use them as a direct response tool in their advertising (radio, television, print, outdoor, etc.), their memorability tends to have a favorable effect on response rates. Regular side-by-side testing of phonewords and phone numbers in TV and radio advertising in Australia has shown that phonewords generate up to twice as many calls as standard phone numbers. A study conducted by Roy Morgan Research in February 2006 indicated that 92% of Australians were familiar with alphanumeric dialling.
Disadvantages In the age of advanced mobile devices, there are some disadvantages to using phonewords. Devices with physical keyboards such as BlackBerry and some other smartphones do not have the apportioned letters on the keys used for dialing, so one is unable to do alphabetic dialing without some other cross-reference to the actual phone number. This can be overcome by phonewords also being accompanied by the actual numeric phone number, allowing users of such smartphones to dial using the numeric phone number. However, devices which have virtual keyboards, including iOS and Android devices, will translate phoneword phone numbers in webpages and SMS messages to their proper digits within a hyperlink leading to that device's phone app, and their keypads show the appropriate local mapping of letters within their virtual dialpad. Some models of smartphones allow the user to enter letters into the device’s dialing window to allow the completion of phonewords. Numerous Blackberry models allow this feature by using the ALT key when pressing a key to select the letter, and not the number on the key. On older landline telephones, the O, Q and Z sometimes vary in placement or are omitted entirely; this is not an issue for most mobile telephones as all 26 letters must be provided to support short message service transmission. The dialing of 1 or 0 instead of I or O in phonewords can lead to misdialed calls; one such typosquatting incident targeted 1-800-HOLIDAY (+1-800-465-4329, the toll-free direct reservations line for Holiday Inn) by subscribing 1-800-H0LIDAY (+1-800-405-4329, the same number with "o" replaced by "zero") to a rival vendor which stood to collect a profitable travel agent's commission.
Regional variations
Australia Phonewords were officially introduced into Australia following the release of the appropriate number ranges by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in August 2004. The ACMA markets the rights of use to the phonewords (also referred to as smartnumbers) via an online auction. Some phonewords have sold for as much as A$1 million with 13TAXI raising A$1,005,000. Proposed ranges of prices for SmartNumbers are listed by the Australian Communications Authority. The types of numbers that are most commonly used include ten-digit numbers beginning with "1300", and "1800", and six-digit numbers beginning with "13". The annual license cost to use 1800 and 1300 is approximately A$1, while 13 costs A$10,000. 1300 and 13 numbers share call costs between the caller and call recipient, while 1800 numbers are paid by the recipient and free to the caller.
Japan Numbers can be used to spell out words in the Japanese language, a practice called goroawase. Most services are used by commercial establishments as an attempt to make their numbers easier to remember. Toll free numbers in Japan are prefixed with 0120. Examples include 0120-363963, where the numbers 3963 can also be read as サンキューローソン (sankyuu rooson, "Thank you, Lawson"), and 0120-026-999 in which 026-999 can be read as オフロでキュッキュッキュ (お風呂で急々々 ofuro de kyukkyukkyu), which literally means "bath - quick, quick, quick".
North America
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