what is 711

711 is a telephone number used for the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) in Canada and the United States. TRS is a service that allows people with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate with others over the telephone network. Dialing 711, both voice and TTY-based TRS users can initiate a call from any telephone, anywhere in the United States, without having to remember and dial a seven or ten-digit access number. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted use of the 711 dialing code for access to TRS. Every phone company in the US is required to connect persons who dial 711 to a TRS call center from a working number. It is important to note that 711 dialing access does not work for Video Relay Service (VRS), Internet Protocol Relay (IP Relay), or IP Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) calls, because such calls are initiated through the Internet.