A person’s virtual phone number is a telephone number outside of the area code he or she lives in. An area code is the number assigned to a specific geographical area serviced by a telephone network. Any call to a telephone outside of this area is then subject to long-distance charges and vice versa.

A virtual phone number in City A is a number owned by a person or company in City B. When someone in City A calls the virtual phone number, it is considered a local call, but the call is routed to the telephone number of the owner in City B. Thus, the person calling the virtual phone number saves on long-distance telephone charges. The call to the virtual phone number in City A may be transferred to the phone in City B through a Voice over Internet Protocol service, or via another landline or mobile phone line.

Phone service providers, whether via the internet or the standard PSTN, offer virtual phone numbers to their customers as an added service. A virtual phone number may be in the same country or in a totally different country. With the rise in global migration, international telephone calls have become important ways for families to keep in touch with each other and the virtual phone number is a way for these families to save on international telephone charges. A young man in New York with his parents in Bangkok may get a virtual phone number in Bangkok for his mother to call. The call, which is logged as a local call and charged as such, is routed to the young man’s phone in New York, saving his mother a significant sum in telephone bills.

The virtual phone number is also a valuable asset for businesses in several ways. In the area of customer service, a virtual phone number in a city far from the company’s main office will enable customers in that city to contact the company without having to incur long-distance phone charges. This becomes even more important in the light of trans-global businesses where many customers are located in countries all over the world. Customer-Company contact is maintained without any cost to the customer, no matter where in the world he or she resides. Toll-free phone numbers, like the “800” phone numbers in the USA are an example of how businesses use a virtual phone number.

With advancements in VoIP technology, using a virtual phone number has become more affordable. The developments in IP telephony have brought voice quality up to par with that of standard traditional telephone systems. The increasing use of smartphones using this technology has also added the advantage of portability to the attraction of using a virtual phone number.