How to Find the Location of a Telephone

To find the location of a telephone number, there are two options available. The most common option is to use public information available on the internet and in phone directories in order to trace the issuing location of the specific phone number in which you are interested. The other way is to use a reverse phone directory in order to gain access to special databases that will give you the identity of the phone number owner.

In order to understand how to find the location of a telephone number, you need to understand how telephone numbers are created, and what the individual digits in the number mean. According to the North American Numbering Plan, all telephone numbers are divided into three sections.

The area code consists of 3 digits, and specifies the general region where the phone is located.
The next 3 digits are known as the exchange, or prefix. This tells you which carrier the phone number is affiliated with.
The last 4 digits are the line number, which is unique to a particular telephone.

The line number has no information about the location of a telephone number. The area code and exchange, however, will in most cases identify the specific region in which the phone is located.

The area code itself usually begins with a number between 2 and 9, and is the most important section in the tracing process. This code specifies the region in which the specific phone is located. This region may cover an area of a few thousand square miles, depending on the population density. It may consist of an entire state, a large section of a state, a single city, or even a section of a large city.

Consequently, by knowing the area code of a phone number, you can narrow down its location. In a densely populated region, the location of the phone number can be quite specific. On the other hand, in a sparsely populated region, an area code covers a large area, so the phone you're interested in could actually be in one of hundreds of small towns or cities.

In any case, an area code covers hundreds of exchanges. So for sparsely populated regions, knowing the exchange can narrow down the location of the phone number to a particular county or town. This gets you as close as you can get by using generally accessible public information. The only way to get an exact location is to pay to use a reverse phone directory service.

Did you notice that the article tells you what information can be found out about the location of a telephone, but it doesn't actually tell you how to get that information? The author has a website, PhoneNumberTrace.com, with lots of information about telephones. There are forms on the home page of the website that you can use to find the location of any area code. And the location of the telephone exchange can also be found in most cases. Why not give it a try?

article source