Foreign Exchange
- Foreign Exchange
- A foreign exchange is any exchange in a circuit-switched telephone system which is outside your local exchange's calling area--this could be another Local Exchange, a National Exchange or an International Exchange.
Your telephone and every telephone near you is probably connected to one or more switches in the local telephone operations center, sometimes called a 'point of presence'. If you make a telephone call to a phone that is not directly attached to your local telephone operations center, the call must be routed through an exchange that you are not directly connected to. Your local exchange must complete the call by opening a connection to another exchange over a trunk line.
This external exchange is referred to as a 'foriegn exchange'. Calls to a foreign exchange are often charged at a higer rate than calls between your phone and other phones directly connected to the same set of call switches.
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