What is the use of "*" and "#" in a telephone keypad?

They're just special characters, and used for all kinds of things.

The star key is used for a lot of custom calling features, like call forwarding, call return, etc.

The pound key is often used in menus to signal the 'end' of a choice, like enter your password and then hit the pound key when you are finished.

Originally, as someone already stated, they were used for future expansion, and that's just what they're used for today.

They're 'wildcard' keys.

Polly They are buttons that can be use for special functions for land-line phone, like for fast dial.

For cell phone, they can be use to unlock the information stored by the cell phone, like the serial no., manufacturing date etc. In orange at me when u call service like 411 * is to go back at previous menu and # this one is then u call numbers like *100# and if u want 2 go directly to other menu u tipe ex: *100*3*6# . # is for end a comand (in Romania) Believe it or not, those buttons were designed for "future expansion" back in the 60's.....

Well now the future is here....

Many large companies get the Phone company to program their ROLM phone network to deliver certain services according to their needs....

Example : *69 is a universal callback on most if not all phone companies.....

But Westinghouse, IF you called them at their Phone number can have their ROLM network deliver you to Customer service with a * 80 if that's what they want....

The same applies with the # button...... In a land phone,when u dial * before a number it speeds up the connection to get established about # i dunno.

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