Reverse phone lookup or reverse phone search involves retrieving user account information for a phone number in Mississippi. When purchasing a phone line, the subscriber is required to provide certain personal information as well as identification. Carriers keep such subscriber information in user account directories that reverse phone searches can query. A reverse phone search or phone number search is for verifying who an unknown number is registered to.
What are Mississippi Phone Numbers?
Phone numbers are a series of numeric digits assigned to subscribers of telephone services. Over the last 20 years, telephone services, technologies, and usage patterns have changed considerably. Carriers, users, and numbers are shifting away from landlines and towards wireless and internet-based services.
Results from a 2018 survey conducted by the National Center of Health Statistics show a marked difference between wireless and landline users. The findings put the number of households in Mississippi with only wireless phone services at 66.5% of the total number of households. Households in the state which used only landlines were put at 3.9%. These figures provide a clear outlook on the direction of phone services in the state.
The four major phone carriers enjoy wide coverage in Mississippi. AT&T has 98.8% coverage, Verizon has 98.2%, Sprint has 95.3%, and T-Mobile has 75.2%. While service might be spotty in remote rural areas, there is an overall high level of service in the state.
The popularity of internet-based phone services has shown a marked increase among both business and individual phone users. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services experienced a massive surge between 2010 and 2018, with user subscriptions rising from 34.2 million to 118 million, according to reports by the Federal Communication Commission. VoIP service numbers can be identified by the XX prefixes codes, i.e., the center numbers in the phone number sequence.
Can I Search a Phone Number and Find Out Who it is?
Put simply, the answer is yes. When assigning phone numbers, carriers require their customers to provide personal information such as name and contact details. Based on the information that is available, phone lookup services can be used to identify unknown numbers by name, address, or other contact information. Anyone who receives a call from a suspicious phone number can use lookup tools to answer the question, “who called me?” However, there are ways of modifying caller information to make establishing the identities of callers harder.
What are Phone Lookup Services?
Phone lookup services are online services that identify callers by their phone numbers. The expansion of the internet, as well as the rise in phone numbers, has driven a surge in the use of these services. Lookup services can help when Caller ID fails to identify an unknown caller. They can also provide identifying information about robocalls. To stop receiving robocalls, consider adding your phone number to the national and state Do Not Call registries.
Caller ID is a phone feature that displays information about the registered owner of the number making the call. It enables the recipient of phone calls to discern who is on the line without having to pick up the phone. They can then decide whether to accept or reject phone calls. Nonetheless, Caller ID can be circumvented by certain tools and applications. These tools are capable of concealing phone numbers or changing the information presented to the Caller ID. Scammers favor these tools as they make it easier to pull off their scams and evade identification.
What Information Can You Get from a Mississippi Phone Number Lookup Search?
Individuals who submit a phone number for reverse phone lookup search can expect to find the following details for the subscriber associated with that phone number:
- Full name
- Address
- Age
- Gender
Most phone number lookup search providers offer free and paid service tiers. Free searches can deliver results, including most or all of the four details above. For more detailed results, consider signing up for a paid tier. This usually delves deeper and provides updated details such as current home and office addresses.
Paid reverse phone lookup searches can also provide additional details necessary to identify and investigate unknown callers. For example, some paid lookup searches go through public social media posts to find current photos and recent activities of the subjects of those searches. Others search through Mississippi court, law enforcement, and government records in the public domain to find criminal and arrest records. Some others will check the watchlists of consumer advocacy groups to lookup negative reports associated with individuals and businesses linked to searched phone numbers.
Such details are helpful when determining whether an unknown caller is a phone scammer or not. They are useful for revealing the true identities of impersonators and discovering fake charities and investment groups.
What is a VoIP Number?
A VoIP number refers to a virtual number used for making voice and video calls over the internet. VoIP calls transfer data packets over the internet rather than relying on copper wires and telecommunications masts for transmitting the information. Using the internet as the data transfer medium results in higher efficiency, increased portability, and lower overall costs compared to traditional phone services.
Another advantage of a VoIP number is that it can be assigned to multiple devices and used simultaneously on these devices. These unique features of VoIP numbers have made them quite popular with businesses and private individuals. However, these advantages have also led to VoIP services becoming popular with phone scammers as well.
A major attribute of VoIP numbers is that they are assigned to users and not fixed equipment like traditional phone numbers. The implication of this is that there is no traditional location data associated with VoIP numbers. This technicality has been capitalized on by scammers as it makes it very difficult to pinpoint the location of calls made with VoIP numbers. Consequently, scammers can call from anywhere in the world and have their calls appear as local to their targets. The ability to link VoIP numbers to multiple devices and use them simultaneously means tracking methods using IMEI numbers cannot be applied. All these factors provide obscurity to VoIP calls which appeal to scammers.
Because of the substantial difficulty in identifying VoIP phone scams, extra vigilance is required when responding to VoIP phone calls. The FTC provides user guidelines on online security on its website, which includes how to block potential scam calls from VoIP numbers.
What is a Mississippi Phone Number Area Code?
Area codes are three-digit numerical codes that were introduced as part of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). The NANP was established in 1947 by the Bell System and AT&T in an effort to facilitate long-distance calling while satisfying the needs of a growing population.
Mississippi area codes are used to identify geographic regions in the state, as designated by the NANP. They enable the accurate routing of phone calls by specifying where to direct calls and identifying the origins of incoming calls. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has assumed control of the NANP since the breakup of the Bell System. The FCC appoints the NANP Administrator, who is tasked with the allocation of numbering resources created by the NANP. Numbering resources allocated to each state are implemented and managed by the state’s regulatory authority.
What is a Mississippi Phone Number Prefix Code?
A prefix code is the sequence of three numbers that follows the area code in a phone number. Prefix codes give more precise locations of phone numbers, such as districts and neighborhoods. For the Mississippi phone number (662) 873-4313, 662 is the area code, and 873 is the prefix code. If the international country code is used, like, say +1 (662) 873-4313, +1 is the country code, 662 is the area code, and 873 is the prefix code.
Is There a Way to Lookup a Phone Number for Free in Mississippi?
Yes, there are several options to look up a phone number for free in Mississippi. Online search directories can provide basic information about a person or business, including name, address, and phone number. Mississippi public libraries also have directories that may include free and pay options for looking up phone numbers in the state. Similarly, if the inquirer knows the phone number's area code, they can use an online area code directory to look up the corresponding city and state information. Although this method will not give the actual phone number, it can be helpful when trying to narrow down potential matches.
If these methods are unsuccessful in helping you find your desired phone number, there are other services available that may offer more detailed searches but will likely require a fee. These services have access to information unavailable to the public and can often provide you with additional details such as occupation, age, and address. Therefore, they may be worth the fee when trying to locate a specific person or phone number in Mississippi.
Is Reverse Phone Lookup Legal in Mississippi?
Yes. Residents of Mississippi can use reverse phone lookup searches to identify the individuals linked to unknown numbers calling them. While there are no Mississippi state laws discussing phone number lookup services, it is legal to use and provide these tools as long as they are not used for malicious intentions. This means that anyone can look up a phone number as long as they do not do so with the intention of finding someone to harass, harm, defraud, or steal confidential information.
While identifying unknown callers with phone lookup services, Mississippi requires that users and providers follow state and federal privacy laws. Therefore, it is illegal to use phone lookup searches to find confidential information about anyone. To this end, legitimate reverse phone lookup providers only provide search results obtained from records in the public domain. These include carriers’ subscriber records, official public records, and information published by users in public forums online.
