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Line type

published · September 10, 2026

Line type is the kind of service a phone number was allocated for: mobile, fixed line, VoIP, toll-free, premium rate, shared cost and the rest.

Line type is the kind of service a phone number was allocated for. Spaw answers one of mobile, fixed_line, fixed_line_or_mobile, voip, toll_free, premium_rate, shared_cost, personal_number, pager, uan, voicemail or unknown.

What Spaw answers

line_type carries the value and line_type_source says which dataset decided it: numbering_plan when the metadata for the prefix was enough, block_allocation when a North American fixed_line_or_mobile was settled by looking up who holds the block.

Four line types carry weight on the phone risk score: premium rate +60, VoIP +30, pager +30 and shared cost +20. The reasoning is about who pays and who can be reached, not about the technology being worse.

What it is not

Line type is not a claim that the handset is reachable today, and it is not port-aware — it describes the allocation. fixed_line_or_mobile is a real answer, not a failure: in the North American plan the two share blocks, and when the block holder settles nothing the honest answer is that both remain possible.

Related

markdown version: /glossary/line-type.md

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