In telecommunications, a long-distance call or trunk call is a telephone call made outside a defined local area, usually to another city. These calls are typically characterized by their higher per-minute cost ("national rate" or "overseas rate" instead of local rate), by terminating at a destination served by a different local telephone exchange or by being carried over intercity trunks or interexchange carriers instead of a direct line between two adjacent exchanges. A long-distance call is not necessarily synonymous with a call to another telephone area code.