Are you saying that in many parts of North America (country code 1), you
can have an area code 123 while your neighbour right next door can have
an area code 234? Does this mean that calling him/her is a long distance
call with long distance change? Or does it depend on which telephone
operator you choose?
Finland went over into a new area code system 1996-10-12 00:00 where the
number of area codes was dramatically reduced into twelve area codes. At
the same time mobile phone operator prefixes were also changed. Both
were previously prefixed with 9, now with 0, e.g. mine is 02.
In preparation for this, telephone numbers were made longer 1992-1996 so
that there would not be duplicates within new larger area code areas.
Mine grew from six digits to seven, which I think is the most common
length nowdays. I doubt shorter ones don't exist, and longiest one I've
seen is eight digits.
As area code areas became larger the need for long distance calls became
smaller. Actually the number of ordinary (wired) telephone numbers is
decreasing as many people is just using a mobile phone. This has became
increasingly popular since 2003-07-01 when it came possible to switch
mobile phone operator and keep your phone number unchanged turning
mobile phone operator prefixes in something like number-issuer prefix.
As a result, to know the operator of a particular mobile phone number
(what does it cost to call into that number), you have send an inquiry
per SMS (text message in local parlange) to a free of charge service.
All these reforms were argumented by opening the market for more
competition (true, the prices have gone down) and EU regulations (well,
I leave it to you see whether _all_ EU countries have opened their
telephone markets).
Metsis
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