How do 1300 and 1800 numbers work?

What's the difference between 1300 and 1800 numbers?

The difference is who pays for the call. Calls to a 1800 number are free for the caller from any Australian landline or mobile, and your business pays for them. Calls to a 1300 number cost the caller whatever their phone provider charges, and your business pays the rest.

Otherwise, 1300 and 1800 numbers can do the same things, and you set them up the same way. Each number has a monthly fee, a one-off activation fee, and per-minute rates for its calls. For today's rates, see pricing.

What is a 13 number?

A 13 number is a shorter, six-digit shared-rate number. It works like a 1300 number, and callers pay for it the same way. 13 numbers aren't sold in the Console. To get one, talk to our sales team, or port a 13 number you already have.

What is a Smartnumber?

A Smartnumber is a memorable 13, 1300, or 1800 number. It's memorable because of its pattern, such as repeated digits, or because it spells a word on the keypad, such as your business name. Numbers that spell words are also called phonewords.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) sells Smartnumbers through The Numbering System. Prices vary from number to number. When you buy one there, you hold its enhanced rights of use (eROU) yourself. We recommend that you keep holding them yourself, rather than have a provider hold them for you. Whoever holds the rights of use controls the number.

A phoneword can have more letters than the number has digits. The number itself is still 10 digits. Any extra letters are overdial digits, which callers can enter without changing where the call goes.

How do I get a 1300 or 1800 number?

You can get one in three ways, depending on whether you already have one:

• Buy one in the Console. Enfonica keeps 1300 and 1800 numbers in stock, ready to buy instantly under Phone Numbers > Purchase in the Enfonica Console. Select Toll-free as the type for a 1800 number, or Shared rate for a 1300 number. To learn how, see Buy a phone number.
• Port one you already have. Move it from your current provider with a port-in request. To learn how, see Port your phone numbers to Enfonica.
• Activate a Smartnumber you've bought. If your Smartnumber isn't active with another provider, we activate it in your project. See How do I activate a Smartnumber I've bought? If it's already active with another provider, port it instead.

How do I activate a Smartnumber I've bought?

After you hold a Smartnumber's rights of use, we ask for it to be activated on our network, and we add it to your project. You can set it up while you wait, so that it works the way you want as soon as it goes live.

1. Contact support with the Smartnumber and the Enfonica project it should go in.
2. If we ask, tell us who holds its enhanced rights of use (eROU).
3. When the number appears in your project with Pending activation, choose where its calls go. To learn how, see Choose where calls to your number go.
4. When we tell you in the ticket that it's active, call it from a mobile. Check that the call reaches the right place.

Where do calls to a 1300 or 1800 number go?

Calls go wherever you send them. A 1300 or 1800 number doesn't ring anywhere on its own, so you choose where its calls go in the Console. To learn how, see Choose where calls to your number go.

You can send calls to:

• Another phone number. Forward calls to a mobile or an office number. Forwarding adds the cost of a call to that number.
• A call flow. Build one in Flow to route calls by time of day, play a menu, or send calls to different teams.
• Your phone system over SIP. Send calls through Cloud SIP straight to your PBX, your contact center platform, or Microsoft Teams (with Direct Routing).

Why send a 1300 number straight to a contact center?

It removes a step from the call path. In the traditional setup, a 1300 or 1800 number points at ordinary local numbers, called DIDs (direct inward dialing numbers). There's often a primary DID and a failover DID, and the contact center answers those. With Enfonica, calls to the 1300 or 1800 number can go straight to a contact center platform such as Genesys Cloud over SIP, with no DID in between.

Going direct has these benefits:

• There's no charge for forwarding each call to a DID.
• The call audio's path has one hop fewer.
• There's no DID that could fail.

The failover DIDs only ever covered a failure of the DID itself. Without a DID in the path, the setup is more reliable, not less.

One contact center customer moved its 1300 numbers to Enfonica this way. It set them up before the port and kept them as ordinary numbers in Genesys Cloud, so nothing changed on the Genesys side.

Can I show my 1300 or 1800 number when I call out?

No. 1300 and 1800 numbers are for incoming calls only. The industry code for reducing scam calls (C661:2022) makes a 1300 or 1800 number an invalid caller ID on the Australian phone network, so calls that show one are rejected. Allowing them could also trigger the scam-call protections on the networks you're calling.

Show a local or mobile number as your caller ID instead. You can still give customers your 1300 or 1800 number to call you back on.

Can a 1300 or 1800 number send or receive SMS?

No. 1300, 1800, and 13 numbers are for voice calls. To send and receive SMS, use an Enfonica mobile number.