In telecommunication, a personal communications service is defined by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) as "a set of capabilities that allows some combination of personal mobility, terminal mobility, and service profile management".
[2] The designation of the 5XX area code format was authorized by the United States Federal Communications Commission, and introduced into the North American Numbering Plan in 1995.
In 1993, the North American Numbering Plan designated area code 500 for personal communication services.
Companies, hotels, and others with PBX equipment continued to block the dialing of 500 because it was a caller-paid number.
It was also misused by premium rate services such as phone sex lines, with it being used to forward calls to various foreign countries.
[5] In 1996, AT&T attempted to migrate users to its revised service called "Personal Reach" 800, built on a toll-free (receiver-paid) platform rather than the original (caller-paid) 500 program.
[citation needed] AT&T discontinued AT&T True Connections in 2000, following the Federal Communications Commission approval of its tariff to cease providing the service.
[21] In 2015, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the Canadian Non-Geographic Code Assignment Guideline and the assignment of the 622, 633, 644, 655, 677, and 688 non-geographic numbering plan area (NPA) codes to meet the demand for telephone numbers related to technologies such as machine-to-machine applications.