James wrote:
Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:02:23 +0200, /Stanimir Stamenkov/:
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:31:37 -0500, /JohnW-Mpls/:
<snip>
In the old days, there was no 'optional' way to dial. Optional became
possible with digital computers on telephone equipment, but mostly from
the user's end. As VOIP and mobile phones have different rules and adapt
to the land line rules at the exchange, the following examples are land
line based:
Some small communities still dial four digits to reach a neighbor that
has the same area code and prefix.
Most local communities use the prefix and number to dial anyone in their
local calling area unless their local calling area includes a different
area code. They do not dial a "1" for local calls.
Outside the local calling area but within the same area code, a "1" must
be dialed before the prefix and number. Do not use the area code as the
call will fail.
Outside the area code and outside the local calling area, a "1", area
code, prefix, and number must be dialed.
The above is why telephone numbers were usually delimited in one form or
another with the numbers in the order in which they must be dialed
(C-AAA-PPP-NNNN).
With all of these variations in how a number must be dialed makes
formatting the telephone number difficult. This is why there are lots of
local variations. Everyone has their own preference, but usually the
numbers are delimited because of the many different requirements in
different locations. No matter what you use as a delimiter, the format
is 'long distance code/country code', 'area code', 'prefix', and
'number'. 18005551212 (no delimiters is easiest to type in and is the
preferred format for most databases), 1 800 555 1212 (spacebar is an
easy hit on a keyboard), 1-800-555-1212 (minus sign on a number pad),
1.800.555.1212 (decimal point on a number pad, usually easier to hit
than the minus sign), 1(800)555-1212 (traditional, but more difficult to
type in), and personal variations that may include almost any characters
other than digits as delimiters, usually non-alphabetic.
Here, in Australia, we used to have a mix of 0a nnn nnnn and 0aa nnn nnn
(a's for area code, n's for numbers), but, in about 2002, the government
agency that handles phone numbers decided to standardise us all on ten
digits, 0a nnnn nnnn.
At the time, it struck me that an eight digit phone number (forget the
area code) gave 100,000,000 possibilities. If we forget the numbers
starting with 0 (which are used for the emergency services) and forget
the numbers starting with 1 (which are used for business freecalls),
that leaves 80,000,000.
At the time, Australia's population was about 20,000,000, so this meant,
without using area codes, every man, woman, child and baby could have
four personal numbers, one for home, one for going to
work/school/nursery, one for at work/school/nursery and yet another for
going home from work/school/nursery.
O.k., so that's a bit ridicules, we could just have had the 20,000,000
mobile numbers and about 5,000,000 home numbers and, still without using
area codes, there would be numbers available to triple the population.
--
Daniel
To get return e-mail address
remove nospam. from address line
From Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, 16th Edition
Amazing Anagrams
Public Relations == Crap, built on lies
Marriage == a grim era
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