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Offer Void in Nebraska (view source)

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reword Nebraska to mention the need for a central location first
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The answer lies deep in some obscure regulatory concepts, a few silly rules imposed by the Bell System, combined with an odd bit of [[Cold War]] surplus.
 
The early InWATS wide area telephone service, introduced in 1966-67, was primitive.
The early InWATS wide area telephone service, introduced in 1966-67, was primitive. There was no proper, itemised list of the calls received on a tollfree number, even if these calls were effectively "charges reversed" or "collect". Instead, a business was issued a special flat-rate line which could accept calls from within some predefined area - anything from merely the adjacent states (Band 1) to clear across the country (Band 6). Evidently, the Band 6 line cost more... much more, and this was aggravated by the telephone companies overcharging for long-distance trunk calls to subsidise their money-losing local service. Add to this the wrinkle that calls within an individual federated state were regulated by the state but, the moment anyone exclaims "Interstate Commerce is at stake!" (which in the American language is said in a mock-horrified tone of shock, as this involves making a federal case of everything) the interstate tariffs were regulated by the US Federal Communications Commission. Some state regulators were more lax than their federal counterparts, so intrastate calls cost more. In any case, the result was that intrastate calls and interstate calls had to come in on separate trunks with different tollfree numbers until the system was computerised in the early 1980s and every individual billable inbound call itemised.
 
With no proper, itemised list of calls received (effectively "charges reversed" or "collect") on a tollfree number until the 1980s, each business had to be issued a special flat-rate line which could accept calls from within some predefined area - anything from merely the adjacent states (Band 1) to clear across the country (Band 6). The calls were counted by length, but not by origin - they could be coming from anywhere within the predefined flat rate area. Evidently, the highest-tier Band 6 line cost a fortune, as telephone companies overcharged heavily for trunk calls to subsidise their money-losing local service. That created an incentive to locate every call centre in the geographic middle of the country.
And those "bands" of inward tollfree calling? Nebraska was usually the butt of jokes for being triple-landlocked (three states or provinces away from tidewater in any direction, including Canada or México), to the point where the "Nebraska Admiral" held a purely-honorary title which ranked militarily on par with Kentucky's Colonel Harlan Sanders. In the InWATS nation, though, that central position was advantageous as a flat-rate line with reached halfway across the land in every direction would bring everything from San Diego to Bangor within Nebraska's "Band 3" calling area. By contrast, San Diego was the worst possible place (short of sending this to Alaska or Hawaii) to answer a toll-free number, as cross-country coverage would be "Band 6" (painfully expensive) for a number which still doesn't work intrastate (and California is the most populous state in the Union). Add the language barrier to that if Californians speak [[Valley Girl]] and a translator has to come on the line to translate the whole mess to Southern Drawl to be understood in some other region. A Midwestern accent just somehow sounds more neutral than something out of the Confederate Deep South.
 
Interstate calls (in the finest US tradition of making a federal case of anything the moment that "Interstate commerce is at stake") were regulated federally (by the FCC) while intrastate calls were regulated by often-lax state regulators. They came in on separate numbers. That made a populous state like California a doubly-poor choice for a national InWATS number as even the premium Band 6 wouldn't accept calls from its home state.
Nebraska had fairly good infrastructure because the Strategic Air Command or SAC (the Air Force command tasked with managing the Air Force's nuclear weapons) was based in Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha and needed [[Crazy Prepared|insane amounts of incoming phone lines as insurance]] in the case of an attack. Needless to say, most of those lines went unused 365 days a year. Mail-order companies, and especially those taking advantage of the new 800 service, saw potential in the infrastructure and petitioned Northwestern Bell and the government to let them make use of it. They agreed with the proviso that the businesses would be cut off if the Soviets attacked. As more call centres set up shop in Omaha, Northwestern Bell built more infrastructure to the point that the number of lines going into "Reservation Row" and the hotel chain call centres dwarfed those originally used by the SAC. The rules about 800 numbers were relaxed somewhat in the 1980s; the last of the restrictions didn't change until the mid 1990s, and eventually the SAC disbanded into the current STRATCOM. [[And Now You Know]].
 
Adding the issue of regional accents (where a Midwestern accent was reasonably neutral, but the "southern drawl" of the Confederacy less so) and the variable availability of infrastructure narrowed the options further. Nebraska already had good infrastructure because the Strategic Air Command (SAC, the Air Force command tasked with managing the Air Force's nuclear weapons) was based in Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha and needed [[Crazy Prepared|insane amounts of incoming phone lines as insurance]] in the case of an attack. Needless to say, most of those lines went unused 365 days a year – unless the Soviets attacked.
 
Nebraska had long been the butt of jokes for being triple-landlocked (three states or provinces away from tidewater in any direction, including Canada or México), to the point where the "Nebraska Admiral" held a purely-honorary title which ranked militarily on par with Kentucky's Colonel Harlan Sanders. That central location, however, represented a strategic advantage - not just for Strategic Air Command, but for a long list of airlines, hire car franchises and hotels to whom a sparsely-populated state in a geographically central location could cover everything in 47 other states with merely "Band 3" toll-free InWATS (Inward Wide Area Telephone Service).
 
By contrast, San Diego was the worst possible place (short of sending this to Alaska or Hawaii) to answer a toll-free number, as cross-country coverage would be "Band 6" (painfully expensive) for a number which still doesn't work intrastate (and California is the most populous state in the Union).
 
As more call centres set up shop in Omaha, Northwestern Bell added infrastructure. The lines going into "Reservation Row" and the hotel chain call centres dwarfed those originally used by the SAC. The technical restrictions were relaxed somewhat in the 1980s as AT&T implemented a computerised SMS/800 database system which could itemise every call and send anything anywhere. This allowed a rare few vanity numbers like 1-800-HOLIDAY (which, under the old system, hit the restriction that the +1-800-465 prefix was hard-wired into northwestern Ontario's sparsely-populated +1-807 area) and removed the restrictions on intrastate calls. The last of the restrictions (including the ability to keep the same freephone number when changing phone companies) didn't change until the mid 1990s, and eventually the SAC disbanded into the current STRATCOM. [[And Now You Know]].
 
Often summed up quite simply with "Void where prohibited," a magical phrase which shifts the onus of learning about obscure laws away from the seller and onto the consumer.
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