WATS

abbr.

Wide-Area Telecommunications Service

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

WATS - a telephone line;long distance service at fixed rates for fixed zones; an acronym for wide area telephone service

WATS line

phone line, subscriber line, telephone circuit, telephone line, line - a telephone connection

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

The second type of toll telephone service is a wide area telephone service ("WATS"-type service) that entitles the subscriber, on payment of a periodic charge (determined as a flat amount or on the basis of total elapsed transmission time), to the privilege of an unlimited number of telephonic communications to or from all (or a substantial portion of) the persons with telephone or radio telephone stations in a specified area outside the local telephone system area in which the station provided with this service is located; see Sec.

Government ends long-distance phone excise tax dispute

Also included in this definition of toll telephone service is WATS (wide area telephone service).

The growing controversy over federal excise tax on long-distance calls

[] Common carriers and communications companies--The tax on toll telephone service does not apply to WATS (wide area telephone service) used by common carriers, telephone and telegraph companies, or radio broadcasting stations or networks in their business.

Telephone Excise Tax

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